Number Theory: Western disturbances have decreased temperatures, not rain deficit

Western disturbances have helped bring rain and snow to north-western India since the last week of January.

Although peninsular India received some rain in early January, most of India was very dry this year – at least until last week. Since the last week of January, western disturbances – storms originating in the Mediterranean region that lead to rain in India – have helped bring rain and snow to north-western India. This has helped reduce the deficit in snow and rain this year, but those deficits are still large, an HT analysis shows. Where the snowfall has, however, helped is in reducing temperatures in India’s mountains in the north. Here are four charts that show this.

A boy walks on a snow-covered hilly road after fresh snowfall in the outskirts of Srinagar on Friday(Waseem Andrabi /HT PHOTO)