Weather

Two British balloonists forced by bad weather to ditch off Japan during their round-the-world attempt were rescued by Japanese military forces, Kyodo news agency reported. It gave no word on the condition of the pilots. Andy Elson and Colin Prescot, who took off from Spain two weeks ago, had hoped to become the first hot-air balloonists to circle the globe nonstop.

NASA delayed the launch of a weather satellite Wednesday because of strong winds high above the Atlantic Ocean, frustrating forecasters eager to get the spacecraft in orbit for the hurricane season. The launch was tentatively rescheduled for today, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said. The satellite, called GOES-7, originally was scheduled for blastoff Tuesday, but a fuel leak in its Delta booster forced a delay.

Spring begins this week and weather forecasters expect warmer weather for the occasion. There will be morning fog but no rain for the San Fernando Valley. "We have weather more like June going on right now," said Eugene Van Cor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. While spring officially begins Wednesday, the coastal marine layer--which brings morning fog and low clouds--has already returned to the region, Van Cor said.

Hundreds of Continental Airlines passengers preparing for the Fourth of July holiday were stranded for at least six hours at Washington-Dulles International Airport early Friday, delayed by a crewless aircraft. Officials from the airline told the passengers that bad weather Thursday night in New York was delaying their 9:30 p.m. flight, bound for Tampa, Fla.

A variety of headache triggers are relatively well-known: red wine, chocolate, soft cheese and the beginning of the menstrual cycle. But although weather, especially changes in air pressure, is frequently cited as a headache trigger, the connection has not been shown in a large, well-designed study.

Inclement weather forced the postponement of the Kennedy-Rancho Alamitos football game Friday night at Bolsa Grande High. The Garden Grove League game was rescheduled for 7:30 tonight at Bolsa Grande. The teams were going through their pregame warm-ups a few minutes past 7 p.m. when lightning, which could be seen in the distance, began to move closer to the stadium. At 7:10, a number of sharp bolts hit near the stadium, and a steady drizzle turned to a downpour, then to hail.

A few days of rain helped slow the spread of wildfires burning on hundreds of thousands of acres across the Northern Rockies. Showers and thunderstorms dropped as much as half an inch of rain on parts of Montana and an inch or more elsewhere. Highs only reached into the 70s, humidity was low and rain was forecast through Wednesday. "These are probably the best conditions we've had since this fire started," said Dan Kincaid, a fire information officer near Townsend, Mont.

Authorities lifted evacuation orders after rain and sleet dampened two wildfires that had threatened hundreds of homes and forced thousands to flee the Castle Rock area. "We have a much better handle on the fire. There's very little concern that it's going to spread," said Andy Lyon, a fire information officer, of a 1,200-acre blaze that had threatened 300 to 400 homes in the suburbs south of Denver. The two blazes erupted Wednesday and were believed to have been started by damaged power lines.

Oklahomans are accustomed to cruel climate. Frigid winters and searing summers are often made more unbearable by scouring winds. But even by Oklahoma standards, it's been a year of whipsaw weather. February was so cold -- with the wind chill it felt like 16 below -- that Tim Gillard installed a door in the long hallway of his home in the small farming town of Marshall, walling off three rooms to more affordably heat the rest of the house. Now, in this summer's unrelenting heat, his family huddles in the air conditioning behind that same door.

The secret military mission of the space shuttle Atlantis is set to end today, but NASA said a storm front moving into Southern California would affect conditions at the landing site. And amateur observers said they had already spotted the shuttle's secret cargo in orbit. NASA broke a news blackout on the flight Saturday to announce that Atlantis would land at 10:08 a.m. at Edwards Air Force Base in California.