First want to understand how bad it could be in the coming summer months?
Well, according to IMD’s summer outlook forecast yesterday, we were told that maximum temperatures are in almost all places above normal, except for some parts of Maharashtra and some parts of Maharashtra. regions of the southern peninsula. So summer will be at a higher than normal rate above temperature in both east, northwest India, north and east central India.
Yesterday’s IMD in its summer forecast also indicated that it expects the effects of El Niño to subside. Can you quantify the sign when you say it can decrease?
No, it’s not El Niño, it’s La Niña that’s been weakening since October. We have a triple La Niña, which is one of the most climatologically unique cases. So we have three consecutive years of La Niña favorable for monsoon season for India but from October onwards La Niña conditions are weakening over the equatorial Pacific and climate models also suggest that El Niño development is likely but there is a driving factor this means that predictions made in February or March for ENSO conditions are SST at equatorial Pacific temperatures.
The instability is there and the skill isn’t much, we call it the spring barrier, so we need to keep an eye on it and we’ll have a better update on that in April. The spring barrier is what will prevent us from forecasting very accurately, it’s a global problem.
Historically, we’ve seen that when the El Niño effect hit, and I was looking at a UBS report, a map of the last 30 years where three times the El Nino impact happened there, it was there. affect the monsoon distribution. So can I say this year we could have bad monsoon or poor monsoon or maybe there is a challenge with the monsoon distribution?
Yes, this is a good question, I will answer it in two parts. The first is that I have data with me from 1951 to 2022 and it’s almost like the data is more than 70 years old and there are about 16 cases of El Nino and out of those 16 cases there are 9 cases affecting summer in India monsoon. So what it turns out is that every time there’s an El Niño, the Indian summer wind is not affected, this is number one. So the fear of 1 on 1, El Niño is there and the monsoon is going to be bad, I think we need to be more clear on this.
Second, monsoon depends not only on El Niño but also on many other factors such as Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean dipole, Eurasian snow cover, and because we are in the tropics, the weather is local. also affected during the monsoon season. . So there are many other factors on which monsoon activity depends. Now on whether this will be a bad monsoon or this will be a good one, I have suggested and the Bureau of Measurement has made it very clear that we have to wait as the current ENSO projections are facing spring barrier breakdown. this time of year when we talk about El Niño projections or ENSO predictions, the intrinsic uncertainties are due to the low coherence between ocean and atmosphere over the equatorial Pacific. So we have to wait a bit longer before it can be clearer whether El Niño is there and when it will be. For now, it is expected to be towards the end of the monsoon season but we need to wait for a clearer picture of El Nino.
When we see this kind of El Niño in February and March, what’s the difference? How much of a difference is there between the initial assessment versus the actual final result?
Yes, even current projections indicate that La Niña conditions are becoming or that ENSO conditions are becoming neutral during the summer monsoon this March, April and May. After this, I think it will have some effect on the development of El Nino. There are years like 2012 that I remember vividly the predictions were there but after that there was no impact. So it all depends not only on El Nino but also on when its peak will be there whether we will see it during the summer or the latter part of the monsoon.
These are the things that will also have a lot of impact on the summer monsoon and it is not very important.
Just wanted to understand when it comes to summer, if you could remind us again is there a high chance of a heatwave during the months of March to May? How bad can it be for some states like Rajasthan for places like New Delhi etc?
Well, during February we saw high temperatures in the north west part of Konkan India, the central part of India including Maharashtra. We saw temperatures soar up to 37 to 39 degrees Celsius in many places in early February. Yes, after this it was stable. Forecasts for March, April and May where we said there is a high chance of heatwaves in March, April and May. Yesterday, we also submitted the script. A heat wave is possible in March. March doesn’t have as many heat waves as other months of the season like March, April, and May. So it is expected that the season could start with a higher number of heat waves in the month. April and May. Of course; Monthly, weekly and daily predictions may also be available for the duration.
Is it all about global warming the most talked about debate, I mean do weather patterns change due to global warming?
Well, I think now if you see February temperatures, it just gives you a glimpse of it. The average February temperature across all levels of India is around 29.5 degrees Celsius, which is the highest February temperature in the past 122 years for all levels of India. So February is actually still very warm on all levels of India. Even the minimum temperature is still warmer in sixth place in the country’s last 122 years of data. So let’s just accept that we live in a warming environment and yes, climate projections also only state that temperatures will increase. Yes, I remember in March 2022 there were unusual heat waves especially in the north of the country. In the northwest of Rajasthan, even Gujarat has some heat waves. Temperatures are above 40 degrees in many places. But this year we predict that March won’t be as harsh but maybe April and May we need to watch for heatwaves and rising temperatures.
