Kashmir Feels the First Signs of an El Niño Year |
Kashmir entered spring this year with snowstorms, heavy rain and damaged orchards. Farmers who usually read the valley’s seasons with precision found themselves staring at skies that shifted without pattern.
Apple growers delayed field work, while vegetable cultivators watched waterlogged plots sink into uncertainty.
Mountain weather has always moved fast in Kashmir, though the current swings feel sharper, stranger and more disruptive.
That disruption now has a global name: El Niño.
Most Indians hear the phrase during drought years and inflation spikes. Few know the story behind it.
Peruvian fishermen first used the term centuries ago after noticing unusually warm Pacific waters around Christmas. They called it El Niño de Navidad, the Christ Child. Scientists later linked that warming to major changes in ocean temperatures and wind systems spread across the Pacific.
Those changes now sit at the center of India’s climate worries for 2026.
Under ordinary conditions, strong winds push warm Pacific waters toward Asia. During an El Niño phase, those winds weaken and warm water drifts back toward the Americas. Global atmospheric circulation shifts with it.
India usually pays the price through weaker monsoon activity, reduced rainfall and hotter summers.
Meteorologists already see signs of a strong El Niño building in the equatorial Pacific. The India Meteorological Department expects the 2026 southwest monsoon to remain below normal at roughly 92 percent of the long-period average.
Early rainfall may create temporary optimism during June and July, especially with the monsoon expected to reach Kerala ahead of schedule. August and September tell the more serious story.
Climate models point toward suppressed rainfall during the latter half of the season, precisely when large parts of........