Forecast: freaky and fickle

This year’s pre-monsoon season between March and May has witnessed severe storms, often laden with dust. It started off with an overall rainfall deficit across the country. In the second week of April, though, the skies opened up in several parts of eastern and southern States, bringing more rain than the average. People soaked in the rain in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, and the showers moved to the Andhra Pradesh and Kerala coasts as well. The transition from April to May, however, was marked by the return of hot weather and crippling dust storms that killed scores of people, mainly in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The storm over western and northern India has had a more destructive impact, meteorologists say, because temperatures shot past 50 degrees Celsius in Pakistan and turned conducive for dust. At the same time, easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal brought in moisture, creating the right conditions for thunderstorms. During the week from May 10, the India Meteorological Department has recorded heatwave conditions in the Vidarbha region, and thunderstorms in many places in the northeastern States and south India. Dust has a big impact on India’s weather, as it is intricately linked to atmospheric heat levels — they affect the amount of heat reaching the earth’s surface and the formation of clouds — and therefore, the strength of the monsoon.

Text by G. Ananthakrishnan