NEW DELHI: The upcoming winter season is likely to experience warmer than average minimum temperatures over most parts of the country except over northern parts of India, thus indicating an overall warmer winter, said an India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast.
Seasonal Temperature Outlook during December 2019-February 2020 forecast indicates that three-month season averaged minimum temperatures are likely to be warmer than average over most parts of the country except over northernmost parts of India.
“Minimum temperatures over most parts of central and peninsular India are likely to be warmer than normal by 10 degree Celsius.
The season averaged mean temperatures are likely to be warmer than normal by 0.50 C over most subdivisions of peninsular India and some subdivisions of east and central India,” said the weather office.
It also said that the season’s averaged maximum temperatures are likely to be colder than normal over some part of central India and warmer than normal over few subdivisions in the peninsular region. “There is relatively higher probability for above normal minimum temperatures in the core cold wave zone during the season,” it added.
The core cold wave zone covers states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Telangana and subdivisions of Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh, Marathawada, Vidharbha, Saurashtra and Madhya Maharashtra.
M Rajeevan, the Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences, said the warmer winters are due to global warming.
IMD issues seasonal forecasts for subdivision scale temperatures for summer and winter based on predictions from the Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecasting System Model.