Abnormal hot weather over North India to continue into Feb, March

The above-average temperature regime over North-West and adjoining Central India will last into February, March and April, according to international weather agencies.

The UK Met Office assesses that there is an 80 per cent chance that the hot weather would persist over the region into the spring.

Minor exceptions would be parts of South Gujarat and adjoining Mumbai as well as those of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, it said.

In near-similar projections, the Busan, South Korea-based Asia-Pacific Climate Centre said that the whole of North, Central and West India would witness above-normal temperatures during this period.

Parts of the West Coast and adjoining peninsula, those of East India and North-East India may spring up some surprise relatively speaking with more hospitable climes.

West Bengal and the southern half of the North-Eastern States may benefit in this manner.

As for individual forecasts for the months, the Busan centre said that both January and February are likely to turn in dry and hot weather over the entire region referred above.

March will turn relatively kinder to western and eastern parts respectively of the peninsula, parts of East India and the North-East.

The month of April would see temperatures climb to new highs over large parts of the country with the entire western half of the country heating up the most.

Affected Met divisions include Rajasthan, west Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, north interior Karnataka, Rayalaseema and coastal Karnataka. Those less affected are Gujarat and the Konkan-Mumbai stretch in the west and practically the whole eastern half save southern parts of Kerala and eastern Tamil Nadu.

This would mean that heat waves would hold strong to the western parts of the country, which is ideal in so far as the build-up to the year 2016 South-west monsoon is concerned.

The heat causes the air to lift, setting the required pressure and temperature gradients for the monsoon winds to blow in from the south-west of the country. Meanwhile on Thursday, India Met Department said that Central India and adjoining East-Central India would see a confluence of opposing winds and resultant violent and wet weather over the next few days.

This would come about as back-to-back western disturbances push in westerly winds from the Arabian Sea only to run into south-easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal.

The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction is of the view that entire East India, Central India, peninsular India and parts of South India would receive thundershowers from January 14 to 22.

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