Accuweather.com - 6/14/13, Jim Andrews

Enjoying the spray from high waves striking the coast at Mumbai, India, Thursday, June 13, 2013. Unbeknownst to most people other than mariners, strong southwesterly winds of the Indian Summer Monsoon were busily at work over the open Arabian Sea, as they would be each year in June, heaping up the high waves that eventually roll ashore on India's west coast. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

In northern India, parts of Punjab and Haryana have already got the first heavy falls of rain two to three weeks ahead of the historical average Monsoon onset.

Isolated pre-Monsoon cloudbursts, some with damaging winds, hail and dust storms, have dealt out falls of rain sometimes amounting to many times the historical average amount for June in Pakistan and northwest India.

For complete story please see Accuweather.com

National Geographic - 6/12/13, Ker Than

The American West is becoming an increasingly dusty place: So-called "dust emissions"—including giant dust storms reminiscent of the Dust Bowl era—have increased in the past 17 years, according to a new study.

Scientists understand only some of the reasons for the surge.

"About half of the changes [we see] are due to drought and high-wind events. We're seeing more of these larger storms that can move dust," said Jason Neff, a geological scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a co-author of the study. "The other half [of dust storms we see remains] unexplained, but candidates include off-road vehicle use, oil and gas development, urban and rural development, and grazing."

For more on this story please see NationalGeographic.com

USAToday.com-6/3/13

PASSAU, Germany (AP) — Swollen rivers gushed into the old section of Passau in southeast Germany on Monday, as water rose in the city to levels not seen in more than five centuries.

The city was one of the worst hit by flooding that has spread across a large area of central Europe following heavy rainfall in recent days. At least eight people were reported to have died and nine were missing due to floods in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

The German news agency dpa said the water levels were the highest recorded since 1501 in Passau, a city that dates from before Roman times.

HawkkeyDavisChannel - 5/10/13

One more week full of rare and record breaking events. Floods, tornadoes, rare blockbuster snowstorms, earthquakes and so much more has taking place the past week or so.

Drought.gov - 5/23/13

The U.S. Drought Monitor is unique, blending numeric measures of drought and experts' best judgment into a single map every week. It started in 1999 as a federal, state, and academic partnership, growing out of a Western Governors' Association initiative to provide timely and understandable scientific information on water supply and drought for policymakers.

The Monitor is produced by a rotating group of authors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Drought Mitigation Center. It incorporates review from a group of 250 climatologists, extension agents, and others across the nation. Each week the author revises the previous map based on rain, snow and other events, observers' reports of how drought is affecting crops, wildlife and other indicators. Authors balance conflicting data and reports to come up with a new map every Wednesday afternoon. It is released the following Thursday morning