Weather Woes Continue

LONGMIRE, Wash. (AP) — An Army Chinook helicopter has rescued two hikers who were stranded high on the volcano's flank after a freak blizzard. The man and woman had frostbite and hypothermia from being caught overnight Monday in a blizzard that killed the woman's husband, according to Bacher. After a winter of heavy snowfall that forced repeated closure of mountain passes, unseasonably cold conditions have continued long into spring in Washington's Cascade Range. Paradise, the jumping-off point for the trail to Camp Muir, received 2 feet of fresh snow over Monday night, with 5-foot drifts and 70-mph winds at Camp Muir. "Nobody expects a blizzard in June," Mount Rainier National Park spokesman Kevin Bacher said.

Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital Friday after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were under water. People in several northern Missouri communities, meanwhile, were piling up sandbags to prepare for flooding in the Missouri River, expected to crest over the weekend, and a more significant rise in the Mississippi River expected Wednesday. Amtrak's California Zephyr line was suspended across Iowa because of flooding along the BNSF Railway. Four boy scouts were killed when a tornado hit rural western Iowa on Wednesday.

Torrential rains and flooding in the Midwest could soon mean consumers face even higher prices for meat, eggs, dairy and other foods. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday slashed its estimate for the volume of this year's corn crop because of wet and flooded fields, prompting corn prices to surge to new records on Chicago futures exchanges. Contracts for July delivery hit $6.73 a bushel, with prices for later months soaring above $7.25 per bushel, more than double 2006 levels. Cattle futures prices also rose as traders bet producers would reduce herds — and future meat supply — in the face of mounting feed prices.

Deaths blamed on the East Coast's recent heat wave climbed past 30 Thursday with various coroner's reports, and 15 of the deaths were in Philadelphia alone. The region suffered through temperatures in the high 90s from Saturday through Tuesday.