Summer resolution: On the IMD’s heat wave forecasts
The HinduIt is not exactly surprising when the India Meteorological Department says that the summer months will be searingly hot. Last week, it proclaimed that most parts of the country are expected to experience above normal maximum temperatures during the “hot weather season”, barring parts of peninsular and northwest India, which would see normal or even below normal ‘maximum’ temperatures. ‘Above normal heatwave days, characterised by temperatures 4°-5°C above what is usual for that time in a region, are likely to occur over most parts of central, eastern and northwest India during the hot weather season,’ its forecast notes. However, what has changed in the last month is a greater certainty of an El Niño, or a warming of sea surface temperatures in the Equatorial Central Pacific, that is strongly associated with reduced rains over northwest India. Heat wave forecasts should be taken as seriously as monsoon forecasts, and the Centre as well as State governments must play a more coordinated role in implementing these plans.