Climate of India: Blog by Dr. Satyaban B Ratna

Every year, the Indian monsoon is watched closely—not only by meteorologists, but by farmers, water managers, disaster agencies, businesses, and millions of ordinary citizens. The southwest monsoon provides nearly 70–80% of India’s annual rainfall (Figure 1) and supports agriculture, water resources, energy production, and livelihoods. This year, growing discussions around the possible development of an El Niño in the Pacific Ocean have raised an important question: Will El Niño affect India’s monsoon in 2026? Figure 1: Average monsoon season (June-September) rainfall (left panel) and Percentage of annual rainfall during monsoon season (right panel) The short answer is: possibly, but not always in a straightforward way. To understand what may happen, it is useful to look at the science behind El Niño, its historical relationship with the Indian monsoon, and why modern forecasting is more nuanced than simple cause-and-effect. What is El Niño? The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is...

2023 Cold Wave Conditions in India Many parts of India are currently experiencing cold wave conditions around 7 -8 January 2023. Severe cold wave with dense fog observed in the states like Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. The IMD had issued a red warning (meaning 'take action') over many regions in northwest and north India. Figure: Observed (top panel) maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and mean temperature and the  anomaly (bottom panel) of  over India during 7 - 8 January 2023 *Based on Realtime Data [Source: IMD] Figure: Observed minimum temperature  anomaly of  over India during 5 - 12 January 2023 *Based on Realtime Data [Source: IMD] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The criteria adopted by IMD to define Cold Wave is given below:  (A) Cold Wave Cold Wave conditions for plains or hilly regions Cold Wave is considered when the minimum temperature of a station is 10 C or l...

2022 annual statement on climate of India by IMD The annual mean temperature of India for the year 2022 was the fifth warmest year on record since 1901. The other four warmest years on record, in descending order, were 2016, 2009, 2017, and 2010. The pre-monsoon (March–May) period was exceptionally hot in 2022, and many parts of the country experienced severe heatwave conditions during this season. The image shows the all-India mean temperature anomaly for the years 1901–2022 with respect to the 1981–2010 climatology. There were several significant extreme weather events that occurred in India during 2022. India might be a unique country that experiences a variety of extreme weather events in a calendar year, from heatwaves to coldwaves; dust storms to snowfall; and from lightning/thunderstorms to heavy rainfall events/floods to cyclonic storms, etc. Furthermore, extreme events occurred across India from north to south and east to west. India experienced many extreme weather events in...

The India Meteorological Department released the December 2022 monthly climate summary. As per the report, the all-India mean temperature for December 2022 is the highest on record (21.49 ºC) since 1901. Similarly, the average maximum temperature for December 2022 is the second highest (27.32 ºC) after the year 2016 (27.75 ºC) while the average minimum temperature is also the second highest (15.65 ºC) after the year 2008 (15.69 ºC) since records began in 1901 (Table 1). The all-India spatial patterns of maximum, minimum and mean temperature for December 2022 is given in Figure 1. Coincidently, all three years (2008, 2016 and 2022) happened to be La Nina years (Figure 2) with December Nino3.4 index values of -0.90 ºC, -0.51ºC and -0.90 ºC respectively. Table 1: The observed temperatures during December 2022 for all India and four homogeneous regions with its ranks since 1901. Values are rounded off to nearest two decimal. [Source: IMD] Figure 1: Observed spatial tempe...