'Spring season' is dead, there is summer just after winters

The weather conditions have changed drastically these days. Experts say the spring and summer season in India is likely to be dry and hot this year and have instructed the country to be prepared for El Nino.

Arriving Spring season late or too early is usually not good, You go to the party when the food is gone and people are leaving, or you wait in vain for the event to start and waste time that could be spent on something better.

That is exactly what many species are experiencing with the climatic changes of recent decades, which are altering the usual rhythms of the seasons and the synchrony between the behaviour of plants and animals, as we are seeing at the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

Practical examples: Due to rising temperatures, plants flower earlier, but their usual pollinator still wakes up on the usual date. Due to this, the vegetables flourish in vain, since there is no insect that comes to fertilize them and, therefore, they fail in their attempt to bear fruit and seeds.

Significantly, there is a chance of very little rain and above-normal temperatures in February of this year. Also, the waning influence of La Niña points towards a hot and dry spring with longer summer temperatures across most of India.

According to data from India's Meteorological Department, Bhuj in Gujarat recorded a maximum temperature of 40.3°C on February 16, breaking its previous all-time record of 39.0°C from February 19, 2017, it is also the first temperature above 40°C that India has experienced.

Very unusual temperatures

If one thinks one can escape the heat in the Himalayas, the hill stations are also hot by their standards, Shimla recorded a maximum temperature of 21.7°C which is well above normal by 10°C.

On the other hand, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on 15 February 2023 recorded a maximum temperature of up to five degrees Celsius above normal in parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh including Jammu Kashmir, Ladakh, and Himachal.

Whereas Mizoram, Tripura, Jharkhand, Goa, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu received no rain at all, while ten other states were rained deficient by more than 90 per cent.

Mahesh Palawat, vice president of climate change and meteorology at Skymet Weather, a private meteorologist told Hindustan Times that, "This is very unusual. Last year we saw maximum temperatures spike in March, this time it's even earlier in February."

According to Indian climatologist Rajesh Kapadia, the 40C set today in India is the earliest ever seen in India and it also the earliest ever in the whole Asia together with 16 February 2016 at Makkah,Saudi Arabia. Historic. And it will just get worse than this.

The previous high for Bhuj in February was 38.9C on 28th February 1953. Now, as per Vagaries' records, this also becomes the earliest date ever for any Indian Station (IMD Manual observatory) to touch 40C. Previous earliest was 20th February, at Bhubaneshwar in 2016.

Maximum temperature on 16th February:

Gujarat

Rajkot: 39.3°c
Deesa: 38.7°c
Surendranagar: 38.6°c
Keshod: 38.4°c
Kandla: 38.1°c
Mahuva: 37.8°c
Ahmedabad: 37.5°c
Vadodara: 37.4°c
Surat: 36.8°c

Rajasthan

Barmer: 38.0°c
Jalore: 36.8°c
Jaisalmer: 36.6°c

Mumbai and Konkan region

Ratnagiri: 37.0°c
Mumbai: 37.5°c
Alibaug: 38.0°c
NaviMumbai & Mira: 38.6°c
Thane & Panvel: 39.0°c
Dombivli & Badlapur: 39.2°c
Devgad: 39.3°c
Kalyan & Manor: 39.4°c

Palawat said a weather phenomenon known as an anticyclone has formed over the northeastern Arabian Sea, sending hot, dry winds from Sindh and Balochistan westward over parts of India to blame.

“Temperatures are also high in the mountainous regions, but that is also because very weak western disturbances are not bringing adequate rain and snow to the western Himalayan region,” Palawat added.

Raghu Murtugudde, a climate scientist from the University of Maryland and IIT Bombay, told Down To Earth that the sudden rise in temperature is due to a powerful westerly jet in the upper atmosphere affecting the warm ocean and desert winds at the lower levels.

Murtugudde said that at the end of last year and during January of this year, the temperature was low from Pakistan, Iran to Afghanistan and beyond. These low temperatures and associated high pressure were blocking the Western Disturbance and causing cold northerly winds. But now the situation has changed with the establishment of a new wind pattern.

Murtugudde further added that, "ENSO forecasts are not really that reliable that early, especially before spring." Will start He cautioned that in such a situation, the forecast says that we should be prepared for El Niño.

Some notorious examples

In the early 2000s, the scientific community published some pioneering large-scale assessments of the phenological changes that were being detected.

Over the next few days, minimum temperatures are likely to gradually increase by 2-3°C over most of north-west and central India and some parts of the east.

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