interim leader. right now in this country, lots of winter weather in colorado. it s bringing heavy snow to denver and surrounding areas. it s disrupting travel. it s expected to keep moving across the country. and a close call, another one for planet earth. an asteroid the size of a football field is expected to fly by our planet today. don t get too worried, though. scientists say there will be a good 600,000 miles between us and that massive space rock. 115 cardinals are getting ready to vote on a new pope tuesday. people arne the world wiound th watching for smoke from chimney above the sistine chapel that will signal when the selection is complete. today, as you can see, there are workers installed with the chimney stack on the roof and we want to go to nbc s claudio la vanga, our guy in rome.
welcome back to weekends with alex witt, let s go over to vatican city where 115 cardinals are getting ready to vote on a thu pope. an incredible image for you today as a worker installing a chimney stack on the roof of the sistine chapel. white smoke will rise from that chimney stack once the cardinals choose the new pope. between now and tuesday when the conclave begins, what do the cardinals have in store for them? well, alex, tomorrow is really the only day off if you may call it that way for the cardinals. because on monday morning, they will still meet once again and for one last time in the general congregation of cardinals and then, of course, on tuesday morning before the start of the election and the conclave they will hold mass in st. peters
area. all the way to see seattle. it s the so-called atmospheric river known as the pineapple express because it extends from hawaii. powerful winds have started knocking out power in some areas. the downpours are expected to trigger flooding and mud slides. let s get the very latest on this powerful storm system and where it s headed. meteorologist jim dickey is tracking it all for us at accuweather. good morning, jim. good morning, rob, paula. soaking rainfall on tap for today. in across california. an upper level pressure system spinning offshore. drawing in tropical moisture here. soaking rain expected. san francisco on northward through portland. in the seattle area. along with strong, gusty winds. we re talking gusts especially along the coast. in some cases, 60-80 miles an hour, 40 to 60 miles an hour here. bringing down trees and power lines. rob and paula, back to you. all right. thanks a lot, jim. overseas, a town in southern italy just got slammed by a rare and power
over the city of long beach, long island. today revealing the utter devastation there. it s a city on a barrier island. the waters from the ocean side met with the waters from the bay side completely innun dating i would say pretty much the ground floor of every single home of that entire city. then tonight, coming here to breezy point and seeing an image that was like something from the world war ii blitz in london in one small community, bill, 80 to 100 homes literally burned to the ground. and the stark image i saw as i waded down through the floodwaters of that scene of just a lone chimney stack the only thing left standing in that community tonight, bill. fire started, right? yeah, absolute miracle, bill that everybody got out alive. you know how tightly packed these homes are in the communities like this here in
middle of a patent lawsuit. yahoo is suing facebook just weeks before facebook s stock offering. yahoo accuses facebook of infringing its patents involving advertising, privacy controls, and social networking. yahoo won a similar lawsuit years ago before google s stock offering. facebook s attorney plans a vigorous defense. part of the southeast england skyline will never be the same again. it took just 21 seconds to obliterate a power station, sending three giant cooling towers crumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust. you can see it right there. the final explosion brought down a 400-foot chimney stack. the power plant was actually built about 50 years ago. and it s all now been demolished to make way for a green energy park. people love to see things blow up. yeah, they do. we love to see that in tv news. things blowing up. like when we were kids and we like it now. looks like sand castles, doesn t it, coming down? it does a little bit, yeah. a little dirtier. a