Western Disturbances, Rains in India and the Woes of the Farmers!

The rains in Delhi and rest of India have been devastating for the farmers.  Indian Government has banned the wheat exports for this year given the poor crop.

Western Disturbances is a global climactic phenomenon with little off-springs delivered on the way.

The only useful thing is for the common man… the summer has ben delayed:

And what caused it?  The met department says: The "Western Disturbances" … which, btw, has nothing to do with Pakistan.. Notice one thing.. this was the FIRST snowfall in Shimla!  That should be really unusual for that city.  I remember in the 1990s when I had gone there and it didnt snow until the Christmas.. and people there were amazed.. It snowed the day I left.  And this is February!

Farmer Bishampur Singh surveys the damage caused by Sunday afternoon’s hailstorm to his wheat field, in village Kadarpur, about 60 kilometers (38 miles) south of New Delhi, India, Monday, Feb. 12, 2007. Heavy rains caused a building to collapse in India’s capital killing at least eight people, bringing the nationwide death toll from the downpours and lightning to at least 15. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan) – by my friend – Guri, of course!

It’s the most quoted word by meteorologists in winters western disturbance. It brings winter rains and it’s a couple of months late this year, hitting western India in February instead of December.

While people in Shimla rejoice the first snow of the season and cities in the north-west enjoy a second spell of cold wave, sweeping down from the hills of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, experts say the rains are going to continue over the next few days and spread further east. They also claim that the spell is not out of the ordinary. Western disturbance is a local name for a global phenomenon. The rest of the world calls it extra-tropical wind or storm or system. Unlike the tropical cousin, which forms over the oceans picking up water, the western disturbance sweeps through the globe, to rain where it hits odd geographical shapes. In India’s case, the western Himalayas does the trick. "The western disturbance is like a mother. When it hits these patches, it delivers off-springs that are far more petulant and bring showers, while the mother disturbance itself continues down, showering a bit in the northeast before it goes along to China," explained a climate expert. India is able to predict it not more than 5-7 days in advance. So, the met department was able to announce the second winter spell.

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