India faces alarming climate shifts: Unseasonal snowfall, early heatwaves and deadly avalanches signal crisis

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. After all the facts have been laid on the table, and all the arguments have been made; when the best intentions to save the planet from a fiery future crash against a resolute wall of government apathy and corporate greed, sometimes all that’s left to do is to take a resigned look at the omens of impending disaster. Sniff the air, as our hunter gatherer ancestors used to do, and try to prepare the best you can for the dark times that are coming.

Because if you were to gather all the different climate signals coming through in the form of seemingly disconnected news stories, then the inescapable picture that emerges is that we are living in a different version of Planet Earth. An Earth that bears very little resemblance to the planet in which human beings have lived, thrived and multiplied in over the past 10,000 years. A planet that is very different from the one of just a decade ago.

Here are some omens. It is now late March, and for most people across India, it will seem like a trick of the mind to imagine that in the Himalayan regions, it is still technically winter. And while the country as a whole has suffered from unnaturally hot winter and spring months (both January and February were the hottest ever on record), there has been a decent amount of winter snowfall in the Himalaya.

Just not in the months that you’d expect. Snowfall season in the Himalaya has shifted from December-January to February-March. While this shift has been ongoing for the better part of a decade now, it is now the norm.

Speak to any mountain community, and they will tell you that in the higher Himalayan valleys, there is less snow, and more rain. When it does snow, it occurs at the wrong time. And this