With winters knocking the doors, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that chill of the season is likely to be mild in most parts of the country this year. However, certain pockets in Odisha, Telengana and Maharastra have begun experiencing fall in temperature ranging 10-12 degrees Celsius.
IMD soon proposes to bring out a Cold Weather Outlook for the period from December 2016 to February 2017 on the lines of its Hot Weather Season Outlook that began in April 2016.
According to weather scientists in IMD, most parts of the country are likely to experience higher than normal average temperatures by 0.5 to 1 degrees Celsius. Though the reasons for this are still not clear, experts mentioned global warming as one of the possible causes.
Such warming signals are being observed for over several years now. The winter of 2015 for instance had also turned out to be quite warm. However, considering that El Nino that causes warming has dissipated early this year, the current season may not be that warm either.
The forecast of above-normal temperatures comes despite weak la Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean that are usually associated with severe winters in India because of greater influx of cold air over the northern region. But this winter may be different, predicted the sources. If the approaching winter remains slightly warmer, one can also expect a reduction in intensity of fog, they added.
However, cold day conditions, with minimum temperatures below normal by around 4-6 degrees Celsius, prevail over Hyderabad and several other districts of Telangana. The lowest minimum temperature of 10 degrees Celsius was recorded at Medak,
said IMD.
There was an appreciable fall in minimum temperatures at many places in parts of Maharashtra and Odisha as well. The minimum temperatures dropped appreciably in one or two places and were markedly below normal at some places as Ahmednagar, Pune and Nasik are observing since past one week. Pune recorded one of the lowest minimum temperatures at 9.9 degrees Celsius.
Phulbani in Odisha remained the coldest in the State with minimum temperature falling to 7.6 degrees Celsius. Bhawanipatna in the Kalahandi district of the State too witnessed dip in temperatures recording 8.7 degrees Celsius.
In sharp contrast, the hill stations of Himachal such as Shimla, Dharamsala and Nahan are experiencing “pleasantly warm winter” with mercury level settling between 11.8 and 12.5 degrees Celsius, which is about 3-5 degrees above normal, compared to the corresponding period in the previous years.
Explaining the phenomenon, private weather forecaster Skymet said that the cold and dry winds blowing out from North India through Madhya Pradesh are causing this significant dip in temperature across Maharashtra and the neighbouring States. Simultaneously, continuous yet weak western disturbances over hilly States of the North are yet to cause much lowering of temperatures. Thus, even though nip in the air can be felt there, hill stations of North India still await an active Western Disturbance for rain and snow that could possibly bring a drop in the average temperature.
Meanwhile, the proposed Cold Weather Outlook for the whole country will bring out a more detailed temperature profile based on predictions using the ocean-atmosphere coupled climate model developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune. This seasonal outlook is released by the Climate Services Division of IMD, prior to the onset of a season. Apart from predicting the seasonal temperature, the outlook would be supplemented by the subsequent weekly updates of extended range forecasts, based on dynamical models on both day maximum and night minimum temperatures.