Weather: Weather Wise

An agreement between the FA and the Met Office may help avert sudden cancellations of matches. Elsewhere in the world, however, bad weather has brought another hazard.

England

The Football Association has reached an agreement with the Met Office for the London Weather Centre to supply a detailed forecast on the Thursday before each match, for each ground where an FA Cup tie is taking place. An updated forecast will also be issued on the morning of the match. An FA spokesman said: "We did have several games called off last year at short notice and while we can't give a 100 per cent guarantee that it will never happen again, we hope the weather service will allow us to be forewarned and forearmed." The new service will allow clubs to employ pitch protection measures in good time.

Australia

The Australian outback town of Katherine, in the Northern Territory, which was ravaged by floods last week, now faces a new hazard. Police officers were startled yesterday to see a 4-metre-long crocodile floating down the main street. "We stopped for a while and had a look at him to see exactly what it was - and when we confirmed that it was a crocodile we found some stairs and up we went," sergeant Mark Setter said in a radio interview.