Scarce rain, snow spark dry winter in north-west Indian states

NOrth-west bharat is experiencing i of its driest winters on register, with an 84.8% rainfall deficiency in dec and 84% in the number one ten days of January, leaving the region’s hills parched and starved of snow at the height of the winter season, meteorologists said on Saturday.The unprecedented dry spell — caused by western disturbances bypassing the region entirely — has created near-drought conditions across the Western Himalayas, with even higher reaches of Uttarakhand recording no snowfall in January, a rare meteorological occurrence for the month.“The main reason for such dry conditions is that western disturbances did not affect the Western Himalayan region this winter. A WD is approaching but let’s see if it causes rain and snowfall,” said M Mohapatra, director general of IMD.In 2024, the deficiency in December was only 18% but around 81.4% deficiency in January 2025.Mahesh Palawat, vice president of climate and meteorology at Skymet Weather, added: “It is almost like there are drought-like conditions over the hills. This is very unusual in December and January... This could be one of the driest winters for north-west India.”Western disturbances — extratropical storm systems originating in the Mediterranean that bring crucial winter moisture to northern India — have travelled at unusually high latitudes this season, giving the subcontinent a complete miss.Dense fog is very likely during morning hours over north-west India and Bihar for the next five to seven days. Specifically, dense to very dense fog is forecast over Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh until January 12, extending in isolated pockets until January 17. Similar conditions are expected over Rajasthan until January 11, the Jammu division until January 12, and Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand until January 15.Cold wave to severe cold wave conditions are forecast in isolated pockets of Rajasthan on Monday and Tuesday. Similar conditions are expected over Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Odisha on Sunday and Monday.Meteorologically at present, a western disturbance is currently positioned as an upper air cyclonic circulation over north Pakistan and adjoining Punjab. Meanwhile, a subtropical westerly jet stream with core winds of 351km/h at 12.6km above mean sea level prevails over north-west India.The lack of winter precipitation raises concerns for agriculture, water resources and tourism. Snowfall in the Himalayas serves as a crucial water source for rivers feeding the Indo-Gangetic plains, and its absence could have cascading effects on water availability. The pattern also affects ski resorts, key revenue sources for states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.While the region remains dry, northern India is battling persistent cold. Over the past 24 hours, minimum temperatures dropped below 0°C at many places over Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad and isolated places in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.Readings between 0°C and 5°C were recorded at scattered locations over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The lowest minimum temperature of 1.3°C was recorded at Amritsar in Punjab.Temperature departures were markedly below normal (minus 5°C or less) at isolated places over Odisha, and appreciably below normal (minus 5°C to minus 3.1°C) in parts of the western Himalayas, Uttar Pradesh, western Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gangetic West Bengal.East and north-east India are even worse off in precipitation numbers, recording an 81% rain deficiency in January and 95.2% in December, with virtually no precipitation over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.