North India witnessed warm and dry weather conditions during fall 2015-16. Winter rains were far and few. In fact, the bone-chilling winter season was actually missing from North India and Delhi.
The above normal weather conditions trickled down to March and high temperatures were recorded throughout the month.
The pan-India rains in the month of March was normal after several months of deficient rainfall. Even North India witnessed normal rainfall in March after negligent rains during Monsoon and post-Monsoon seasons. Nevertheless, temperatures kept on rising and remained above normal for major part of the month.
The monthly average for the Safdarjung observatory in Delhi is 29.6°C while the weather station recorded an actual average of 31.7°C in March 2016. Similarly, the Palam observatory recorded an actual average of 33°C against the normal monthly average of 29.9°C.
Such high temperatures in March were last seen in the year 2010 which was preceded by the El Nino year 0f 2009. This could be a coincidence but Skymet weather believes it could possibly be a weather pattern. The table below will substantiate this statement.
Here we have taken the actual monthly average maximum and minimum temperatures (in °C) of several cities in North India and their total rainfall (in millimeters).
Temperature and rainfall profile in North India in March during last 7 years suggest that temperatures were so high back in 2010.
April once again followed suit and broke past temperature records in the first week itself. On April 3, Safdarjung recorded 39.4°C as maximum and Palam touched 43°C. This is the highest during the month of April in last 10 years. Hisar was no better with maximum at 38°C and Ambala recording 37.9°C as day temperature.
Warm southeasterly winds coming from Central India will now be replaced by northwesterly winds. Accordingly, we can expect some relief from the scorching heat in northern plains including Delhi-NCR. However, as a whole April is going to be above normal.
Image Credit - indiatimes.com
