NH Winter/SH Summer 2019-2020 Discussion Thread

The lower regions of Nagaland —a mountainous state in NE India, bordering Myanmar— recently received their first snow since the early 1980’s, as S Asia continues to battle its deadly cold wave.

The rare snow reportedly blanketed the rolling green hills and meadows of Tuensang, Kiphire, Zunheboto, Phek, Kohima and Peren districts near the turn of the New Year, and was thanks to a bucking of jet stream which drove brutal Arctic air anomalously far south, sinking temps some 10C below the seasonal average, to a system-shocking 2C (35.6F).

Nagaland is not used to snow, quite the opposite in fact — India Meteorological Department data reveals most districts hadn’t recorded a trace of the white stuff since the state’s weather center was established way back in 1982.



“We have a center in Nagaland that was set up some years ago. It never reported snowfall in the state,” confirmed scientist Sunit Das of the Regional Meteorological Center.

It’s been brutally cold in Northern India this month, with the maximum temperature in the nation’s capital Delhi sinking even further on Monday, December 30 to a record-smashing 9.4C (48.9F).

This makes Monday the coldest December day since at least 1901 (the Centennial Minimum), as well as the coldest day in the national capital during the December-February period since 1951.

“The Safdarjung Observatory [Delhi’s official weather station] recorded a maximum of 9.4 degrees Celsius, making it the coldest December day since 1901,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional weather forecasting center.

For comparison, Srivastava noted the normal high at this time of the year is 20.8C.