Disclosing this here on Tuesday, leader of the high-level US delegation participating in the ongoing six-day UN-Escap's second ministerial conference on space applications, Gregory W Withee said India could benefit in a big way from the cooperative space missions which include data analysis and sharing through cyclone oriented projects and the like.

Gregory, who is the Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services of the United States' prestigious National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOVA) said the US had got the technological capability to predict severe tropical cyclones like tornadoes 24 hours in advance even when the cyclonic system was as far as 160 km away from thecoast.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Department of Space (DoS) with its weather satellite warning systems got to know about the supercyclone when it was only 50 km away from the coast. It was also unable to predict its future course of movement.

With the excellent data India had been obtaining over the years on weather and even through the recently launched Oceansat, it would not be difficult for it to develop data analysis and prediction of such cyclones with techniques it could acquire from the United States through cooperative mission, he said. This was possible through use of Insat satellites data in numerical modelling for weather forecasting by both the countries besides calibration of data obtained by the use of National Aero Space Administration (NASA)'s Tropical Rainfall Information Measuring Machine (Trimm) satellite.

The communication pathways between India and the USA for exchange of such data could facilitate study of cloud and wind vectors for tropical cycloneswhile a climatology project to study clouds and their precipitation was possible using historic database. India, Gregory said, was keen to join the World Climatology Project of the USA to benefit from the data in a big way.The US delegation had discussions with ISRO and the Departments of Space and Science and Technology on various projects on disaster warning systems and data exchange for mutual benefit and finalise specific projects shortly.

United States, he said, had invested heavily on data calibration and validation systems both from the ground and atmosphere to get accurate rainfall measurement and prediction and set up dedicated advance modelling laboratory for the purpose specialised in numerical forecasting techniques that could develop hurricane models.

Hurricanes with 300 kmph velocity hit the Gulf of Mexico in 1969 and it was for the Federal Emergency Organisation of the USA to take care of all cyclone emergency operations including evacuation of the people from the areas likely to be hitby the killer systems.

To mark the Indo-US cooperation in science and technology, an Indo-US Data Centre will be inaugurated by the Administrator of NOVA James Baker at the meteorological station here on Wednesday.