Weatherman signals a nasty summer ahead for India
NEW DELHI : Climate change will accelerate the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, India’s top weatherman warned, on the backdrop of the country witnessing a far higher number of intensely heavy rainfall and heatwave days, fewer colder days and increasing thunderstorms in recent times. Specifically, the next three months, which coincide with the general elections, are expected to be particularly bad in terms of heatwaves.
“We are noticing extreme behaviour in weather," India Meteorological Department (IMD) director-general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said in an interview on Wednesday. “The number of heavy rainfall days is increasing; the number of heatwave days is increasing; the number of colder days is decreasing; and thunderstorms are increasing because of heating or climate change." March 2024 was reportedly the warmest March on record globally, with an average temperature of 14.14 degree Celsius, surpassing the previous high set in March 2016 by 0.16 degrees.
This marked the 10th consecutive month of record warmth year-on-year for respective months. In fact, February 2024 was 1.68 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service or ECMWF.
On 1 April, IMD had warned that most regions of the country will witness above-normal temperature during April-June, with central and western peninsular regions bearing the brunt. IMD also expects to see 10-20 days of heatwave in different parts of the country in these three months against a normal four to eight days.
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