IMD forecasts rainfall, snowfall in north India; temperature to drop
A thunderstorm with light to moderate rainfall is expected in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, and Delhi, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said. The weather agency also predicted an isolated hailstorm on February 2-3 and February 3-4 over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand respectively. In this regard, a yellow alert was issued in higher areas of Himachal Pradesh.
- Due to extreme climate change in the country, the duration of snowfall has been extended compared to the previous years.
- The rainfall and thunderstorm will bring the temperature further down in the aforementioned regions, which are already grappling with extreme winter chills.
- The IMD has already predicted normal to above normal rainfall in most areas of Punjab and Haryana in February.
The yellow alert in Himachal Pradesh includes prominent tourist locations like Spiti, Kullu, Shimla, and Chamba. "Duration of snowfall was longer in comparison to previous years. Coming 48 hours will be extremely cold with heavy snowfall," Surender Paul, head of the IMD regional office in Himachal Pradesh, told ANI. Several regions in North India have been witnessing cold-wave conditions.
According to the IMD, the snowfall and rainfall are predicted due to active Western Disturbances and their cyclonic circulation. It said that the equatorial Pacific is currently experiencing weak La Niña conditions, a weather phenomenon linked with severe winter weather. The agency earlier said that several parts of India will witness lower temperatures than expected in February.
On February 3-4, scattered to fairly widespread light or moderate rainfall with thunderstorms/lightning is likely to occur over Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, Odisha, and West Bengal, with a chance of an isolated hailstorm over the region, the IMD said. The weather is due to a convergence of lower levels westerlies associated with the Western Disturbance and lower tropospheric southeasterlies from the Bay of Bengal.
The IMD has changed its strategy for issuing seasonal and monthly rainfall and temperature forecasts for the country. The new technique is based on a forecasting system called Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) that was recently developed. The MME method employs coupled global climate models (CGCMs) from a variety of global climate prediction and research organizations, including the IMD/MoES Monsoon Mission Climate Forecast System (MMCFS) model.
