North India comprises of varied terrains, three mountainous states namely Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, plains consisting of regions like Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and North Rajasthan and the foothills of Himalayas. Thus, all the three terrains enjoy different weather activities in terms of spread and duration of rain and/or snow.
The winter period spanning from December to February is the time when the northern part of the country is affected by Western Disturbances. It could be in any given scenario any weather activity occurs over North India due to the Western Disturbance and its induced cyclonic circulation.
There are occasions when the combination of both these weather systems moved in tandem and gave widespread rain and snow over the hills and plains of North India. One such incident was on December 11 and 12 when both the plains and the hills of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand received widespread snow, rain along with hails in parts of Punjab and Haryana.
However, at times, it could possibly be just the Western Disturbance traveling in the Western Himalayan region without a significant induced cyclonic circulation. Under this scenario, only the hills are affected by rain and snow whereas, the plains remain far from witnessing any significant weather activity.
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This has occurred twice, this season, between December 21 and 23 and between January 30 and 31, when only the hills of North India were able to record some showers along with snowfall.
The third possibility is when the Western Disturbance tracks from the region and only the induced system affect the weather of North India which is very occasional. This has happened just once on January 23 and 24.
This year, the winter months have underperformed, and rains remained on the lower side. A couple of spells were seen affecting North India, however, the frequency of weather affecting hills was larger than plains. There have been rare occasions when the latter saw rains and the former didn’t. Yet, there were very few occasions when both the plains and hills witnessed weather activity together.
As of now also, the weather of the plains of North India has relatively cleared up. Clear skies, bright sunshine, and rising maximum temperatures are all the indicators of clear weather conditions. As far as the hills of North India are concerned, they are still witnessing partly cloudy skies.
Skymet Weather does not foresee any weather activity over both the plains and hills of North India for at least another 24-48 hours. Thereafter, between March 1 and 3, the hills of North India may get to see another round of rain and snow. The intensity and spread of this weather would be more over Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh while will be isolated over Uttarakhand.
On the other hand, the plains of North India would not experience any significant rain activity for at least another week. It would only be when the weather system would spread towards the foothills that some locations may witness isolated rains.
Image Credit: Moody Compass
Any information taken from here should be credited to skymetweather.com