El Niño may hit already hurt Indian farmers
By Akshit Sangomla
Six Indian states have already declared a drought this season and many others, like Gujarat, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, with large rainfall deficits soon joining this list. The drought conditions in these states will exasperate the Indian agrarian crisis, which has mobilised lakhs of farmers to march towards the national capital to take part in a two-day rally on November 29 and 30. To add to this, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is monitoring a weather condition which might deflate farmers’ hopes for the next year as well.
On November 22, the IMD says moderate El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions are currently prevalent in the equatorial Pacific Ocean region and the El Niño is likely to develop in the next two months. If the El Niño continues into the spring and summer seasons, it might bring down the average rainfall during the 2019 monsoon and cause warmer than usual summer temperatures.
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Evidence of the effect of El Niño can already be observed. The weekly forecasts on the deviation in minimum temperatures over different parts of the country indicate that the winter season has had a mild beginning. In the week between November 16 and 22, minimum temperatures for most parts of the country were forecast to be near normal. On November 22, after the IMD announced the prevalence of moderate El Niño conditions over the equatorial Pacific Ocean, it also forecasted above normal minimum temperatures in many parts of the country till December 6. The IMD had earlier predicted a warmer winter and less rainfall due to El Niño.
The development of an El Niño might also have been responsible for the unusually low rainfall in September and the post-monsoon months in India. While the country saw a rainfall deficit of 24 per cent in September, in the post monsoon months it has been as high as 49 percent (October 1-November 21). The situation is the worst in central India which has received 64 percent less rainfall than normal.
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