Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said the climate models it monitors indicate a possible return of the El Nino weather pattern, often linked to heavy rainfall and droughts, in the second half of 2012.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

Bill Read, the top U.S. hurricane forecaster for the last 4-1/2 years, says researchers may be edging closer to finding the "holy grail" of hurricane forecasting.

But Read, who steps down as director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Center on June 1, acknowledged in an interview it could be the end of this decade before there is any significant improvement in forecasting the rapid intensity changes in a hurricane.

"That's still the holy grail if you will in hurricane forecast research, to try to capture those rapid changes in intensity," Read told Reuters.

Pakistan has been ranked among the top 20 highly vulnerable countries impacted by climate change, sources told Daily Times on Tuesday.
According to the Maple Craft Climate Change Vulnerabilities Index, Pakistan has been placed among the ‘high risk’ category of countries impacted by climate change. Another organisation by the name of German Watch has identified Pakistan among the top 10 highly vulnerable countries of the world.

India’s Cabinet has given its approval to a “National Monsoon Mission,” which will equip the weather department with high-end computers, radars and scientific manpower to generate more detailed and accurate forecasts.

India’s current antiquated methods of forecasting the all-important monsoon rains is getting a re-vamp.

No other weather phenomenon generates as much excitement among policymakers and economists, given that it holds the key to farm output, a sector employing half the country’s workforce.

India today successfully launched its first indigenous day-night and all-weather radar imaging satellite RISAT-1. It is slated to boost country's remote-sensing capabilities and facilitate agriculture and disaster management. Till now, India depended on images from a Canadian satellite as existing domestic remote-sensing spacecraft cannot take pictures of the earth during cloud cover. "The satellite can give valuable data like soil moisture, glacier positions and other details," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Radhakrishnan said.

IMD, however, cautions that the monsoon may weaken in August-September due to atmospheric changes in the tropical Pacific
India is expected to have a normal monsoon for the third consecutive year, boosting prospects of good harvests and higher rural incomes.

Sriharikota Achieving yet another milestone in its space programme, India on Thursday successfully launched its first indigenous all-weather radar imaging satellite RISAT-1 that will boost its remote sensing capabilities and facilitate agriculture and disaster management.

The perfect launch of the satellite catapulted India into a select band of countries having indigenous radar imaging technology. “Only the US, Canada, Japan and the European consortium have the technology so far,” PS Veeraraghavan, director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, said.