Weather: Weather Wise

As England enjoys a stable spell of cold, dry weather, thanks to the area of high pressure perched above us, the rest of the world has its own problems.

Australia

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Northern territory town of Katherine as roads were cut off by the worst floods in the region for 40 years. Helicopters were used to evacuate patients from the town's hospital and to move outlying communities to higher ground. The torrential rain - 14in in 36 hours - was blamed on Cyclone Les. Meanwhile at the Australian Open tennis in Sydney, play was stopped by rain on all courts except the roof-protected Centre Court, and bookmakers refused to take bets on snow falling.

Morocco and Switzerland

Richard Branson's latest bid to fly round the world in a balloon has been delayed by bad weather in Morocco. A Swiss-led attempt to get round the world before Branson has also had to delay take-off, because of bad weather in Switzerland.

Maine, US

Just as Maine had almost recovered from the ice storm that hit it three weeks ago, another one at the weekend left 28,000 households without power. Central Maine Power said there were still 1,000 customers without power from the first wave of bad weather.