According to data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi has broken at least one weather record every month since August 2020. While these extreme weather records are the immediate result of temporary atmospheric events over (and in and around) the nation’s capital, meteorologists and scientists say the climate crisis plays a larger role in the overall shifting of weather patterns.
The city received 236.5mm of rain in August 2020, the most for the month since 2013. Officials from the National Weather Service also noted that 50 percent of the total rainfall fell in just two days, on August 13 (68.2mm) and August 20, respectively (54.8mm).
Delhi experienced its warmest month in nearly two decades in September. The average maximum temperature in the Capital that month was 36.2°C, breaking the previous record of 36.1°C set in 2015. The last time Delhi experienced a higher average maximum temperature in September was in 2001, when the temperature reached 36.3°C.
Delhi set a 58-year-old record in October, with a mean minimum temperature of only 17.2 degrees Celsius. November set a new low for the month, with the mean minimum temperature dropping to 10.2 degrees Celsius, a level not seen since 1949. Only in 1938, when the mean minimum temperature was 9.6 degrees Celsius, was November’s mean minimum temperature lower.
The trend of colder-than-average temperatures continued in December and January, with December seeing the most so-called “cold wave” days since 1965 with eight. January set a new record for the most cold-wave days (seven) since 2008, as well as the highest monthly rainfall in 21 years (56.6mm).
The minimum temperature in the plains should be 10 degrees or lower, and the deviation from normal minimum temperature should be 4.5 degrees or less for two consecutive days, according to IMD.
These extreme weather records between October and January, according to Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre, were the direct result of fewer western disturbances passing over Delhi.
