Drought loosened its grip on the southern U.S. Plains over the past week after moderate to heavy rains across Texas and surrounding states, although rainfall totals over the past six months remained below normal, according to climate experts. Meanwhile, drought intensified in parts of the Southeast amid below-normal rainfall, according to the Drought Monitor weekly climatology report issued on Thursday by a consortium of U.S. climate experts. Read more.

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The south central United States was pelted with a wintry mix of snow and freezing rain that threatened travel on Sunday, while frigid temperatures chilled the East Coast during what has been an unseasonably mild winter, forecasters said. Read more.

Heavy snow fell across Italy on Saturday, blanketing the capital Rome, cutting off mountain villages and disrupting roads, railways and airports around the country. Read more.

Freezing temperatures and heavy snow in Turkey are making life miserable for the more than 140,000 residents who were left homeless by the nation’s devastating earthquake four months ago and who are still living in tents or temporary shelters. Read more.

Serbia was struggling to keep its power system going, officials warned Thursday, after weeks of record low temperatures in Europe that have snarled traffic, frozen rivers and challenged officials to step up outreach to the vulnerable homeless. Read more.

The usually frigid Canadian city of Winnipeg — often nicknamed Winterpeg — has been so mild and dry this winter that a popular snow-sculpting competition has been forced to truck in 200 loads of fake flakes for this year’s annual event. Read more.

Illinois, a key farm state in the heart of the Corn Belt, is basking in its sixth warmest winter in 117 years — good news for residents who have not had to shovel snow but a red flag for some of the state’s most productive businesses: farms. Read more.

Although the groundhog predicted six more weeks of winter, much of the country is not aching for a respite from what’s been a mild and dry season. Read more.

For more than a century, through a dozen dry spells when lakes disappeared and the land died, thousands of cows from the Swenson Land & Cattle Co have roamed the fields of Texas. Yet the drought currently ravaging the southern Plains has done what the Dust Bowl could not: chased them off this land and driven them more than 600 miles north to Nebraska. Read more.

A federal “plant hardiness” map used by millions of gardeners was updated Wednesday for the first time in two decades, revealing many areas where the coldest day of the year isn’t as cold anymore. Read more.