This year October ended without its typical chill and the India Meteorological Department on Friday predicted a warmer November, giving no indication of the upcoming winter. A lookback at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) data from 1901 reveal that, this year Delhi reported the warmest October in 73 years with mean temperature recording 1.23 degrees Celsius above normal. This is the fourth highest monthly day temperature and the sixth highest monthly night temperature in October recorded since 1901.
Addressing a press conference, IMD Director General Mrityunjay Mohapatra said the mean temperature in October was recorded at 26.92 degrees Celsius, the warmest since 1901, against the normal of 25.69 degrees Celsius and attributed the warmer weather to the absence of western disturbances and influx of easterly winds due to active low pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal. The minimum temperature also clocked 21.85 degrees Celsius against the normal of 20.01 degrees Celsius for the country as a whole.
Mohapatra said the weather office does not count November as a winter month. He said January and February are considered as winter months, while the hints of the cold weather are available in December.
As per IMD records from 1901, the highest-ever average day temperature for October was recorded in 1951 at 36.2 degrees Celsius. The highest-ever average night temperature was 22.3 degrees Celsius in 1915 and 1951. The other warm years were in 1907 with the average maximum settling at 35.5 degrees Celsius.
According to IMD, October 1930 and 1938 recorded an average maximum temperature at 35 degree Celsius. In 1941 a record-breaking average maximum of 35.8 degree Celsius was reported. Further in a decade, this record was again broken with the year 1951 reporting an even higher monthly maximum temperature at 36.2 degree Celsius.
Data for the last decade shows Delhi’s lowest minimum in October was 12.5°C in October 2020 (October 29). It was 14.3°C last year (October 28); 14°C in 2022 (October 25); 14°C in 2021 (October 29) and 16.5°C in 2019 (October 23).In 2018, the lowest was 15°C (25), 16.1°C in 2017 (26), 15°C in 2016 (29 and 30), 15.3°C in 2015 (29) and 15.6°C in 2014 (17).
"In north-western India, north-westerly winds are needed for lower temperatures. The monsoonal flow was also there that does not allow fall in temperature," Mohapatra said.
He said the temperatures will continue to remain 2-5 degrees above normal in the north-western plains at least for the next two weeks, before a gradual decline towards normalcy.
In the southern peninsula, the north-east monsoon is expected to bring above normal rainfall in November in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal, Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam, Rayalaseema, Kerala and Mahe and south interior Karnataka.
"The above normal to normal rainfall is likely over most parts of the country except northwest India and some areas of central India," the weather office said. The delay in the onset of cold weather conditions could also be on account of the continued prevalence of the neutral El Nino conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
