Why December is less cold this year?

About two weeks into the month of December one of the coldest months of the year, there should have been at least some moderate snow on the Himalayan peaks, but hardly any snow at all due to the absence of a strong Western Disturbance. The temperature is higher than normal.

December is less cold

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that due to the absence of a strong western disturbance, there has been almost no snow in the upper and lower reaches of the Himalayas in the month of December.

Experts say the maximum daytime temperature is high this time because this year the western disturbance is affecting Delhi and northern India less. Dr. M. Mohapatra, head of IMD, told News18 that this time the effect of the western disturbance is less, so the weather is dry, with no rain and no clouds visible. For this reason, no cold winds blow and no dense fog has been seen.

Dr. Mohapatra further said that since the effect of Western Disturbance is less this time and there are no clouds in the sky, the sun's rays are coming on the earth with more intensity and there is hot radiation in the atmosphere.

He believes that this time this trend can continue for some time in the cold season. For this reason, the temperature is not falling that much even at night and the days are more or less warm.

According to IMD, there is a 97 per cent rainfall/snowfall deficiency over Himachal Pradesh; 80 per cent over J&K in December and there was also no precipitation or snowfall over Uttarakhand. It said Leh and some more parts of J&K recorded light snowfall on Dec 9 due to a weak western disturbance.

No snowfall in December in mountainous

K Jenamani, the senior scientist at the national weather forecasting center, IMD, told Hindustan Times: “This time, even the upper reaches of the Himalayas have not received snowfall in many areas. This is mainly because no strong western disturbances have affected the region since November. It's too early to tell if this is unusual. We have to see if a strong WD hits the region in the second half of December. As of today, we do not have projections of a WD that will affect the region immediately. This does not necessarily mean that there will not be a cold snap."

Mahesh Palawat, vice president of climate and meteorology at Skymet Weather, said: “There has been almost no snowfall in December in the mountainous states including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir. In October and November there was some snowfall over J&K and Himachal Pradesh, but not substantial. This is very unusual."

What are Western disturbances?

Western disturbances are storms that originate from the Caspian or Mediterranean Sea and bring non-monsoonal rainfall to northwest India, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). In the term “extratropical storm”, thunderstorm refers to low pressure. "Extratropical" means outside of the tropics.

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