No, not the U.S. State Department. I mean the real thing. Folks who actually help. You know, scientists.

An international team of atmospheric scientists may be "unlocking the storm code." They're poring over data that could help uncover atmospheric triggers for warm-weather storms and determine which high-tech tools would be most effective in detecting them. This matters: events such as flash floods inflict over $5 billion a year in damage and kill more people than hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, or lightning. I bet Chuck Watson of "Shoutin' Across the Pacific" will be happy to hear that. Anything that might help him predict better and save more lives will be welcome.

Let's go up the disaster scale by many orders of magnitude now. Is an asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Maybe, according to some astronomers who say asteroid 2002 NT7's path worries them (see picture), and an impact from a body that size could devastate a continent. They're looking at 1 February, 2019 as "Armageddon Day." This is worrisome because Bruce Willis will be far too old by then, but there are enough uncertainties that it could miss us. I'm actually very encouraged that we're starting to see this kind of early detection. It bodes well.

UPDATE: Andrew Bridges reports that the asteroid will remain in the sights of astronomers for another year at least, allowing them to further refine their estimates of its trajectory on its 837-day orbit. "At that point, if it's still a threat, I'd start to get a little concerned, but not before then," said Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass.