Googong dam has begun to spill again, as Wednesday's wet weather pushed it to capacity, while sporting grounds across the territory were shut and chaos reigned on Canberra's roads.

A much-anticipated cool change took its time making it to Sydney, dragging out another unseasonably hot day.

The past five years have been the hottest on record.

Canberra is in for some above-average warmth as the weekend nears but the odd shower and a touch of cloud will rain on an otherwise sunny parade.

Large swaths of India were baking again Wednesday under intense heat that has killed more than 1,300 people and left the government scrambling to warn an often unheeding population about the dangers of stepping outside in the blazing midday sun.

Search-and-rescue teams have located debris appearing to belong to the cargo ship El Faro, which went missing in the eye of Hurricane Joaquin with 33 mostly American crew members aboard more than three days ago.

Australian customs officials destroyed two irreplaceable plant specimens that were being loaned to scientists by international institutions, prompting one of the institutions to suspend all transfers to Australian scientists.

The restart of Sydney's desalination plant is proceeding faster than expected, helping to slow the drawdown of the city's reservoirs amid the ongoing drought.

MANILA, May 10 AFP - More than 2000 people are fleeing their homes as Typhoon Noul strikes the northern Philippines.

It was the perfect winter weekend to stay indoors with the Perth metropolitan area drenched in rain and battered by strong winds and hail stones.

Canberra is bracing for a hot, dry weekend but a cool change could bring light rain on Christmas Day.

Extreme rainfall events in Sydney are on the increase, particularly during summer, a new report finds, while engineers are set to be given new guidelines to adjust for the flood impacts of climate change.

Another burst of wintry cold is heading Sydney's way - but not before the mildest run of weather so far this month.

It's the time of the year when the surf looks its most inviting, but it's also when our anxiety about sharks hits its peak.

Air quality deteriorated to poor and hazardous levels in some parts of Sydney on Thursday morning as controlled burns gave the city the distinctive smell of burning Australian bush. 

Air pollution was higher in Sydney's north-western suburb of Prospect on Friday morning than it was in Beijing at the same time. 

You survived Melbourne's hot summer? Expect Autumn to be wet. But first, we have to get through March, which is looking like a scorcher.

An Australian credited with creating a technique that has helped reforest millions of hectares of degraded land globally has won the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'.

Sydney is in for another scorcher on Thursday with the potential for 40 degrees over much of the city ahead of a gusty cool change from the south.

There's nothing like a double rainbow to get Sydneysiders to wax lyrical (or resort to multiple exclamation marks!)