Advice on predicting events

Hey guys. Machine learning n00b here. Let's say I have a bunch of time series (say from Jan 1 1990 to Dec 31 2013) and a bunch of events that occurred at various dates during that time frame. How do I predict the probability of an event happening at any point.

For example, my time series data might be World Bank economic data (yearly inflation, gdp etc) and I want to predict economic crises.

Or my time series might be weather data (daily rainfall, temperature etc) and I want to predict floods or storms etc.

Thanks!