Why in the news?
According to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD), latest seasonal outlook for December to February 2019, there was a higher probability of above-normal minimum temperatures during the winter season. Based on Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecasting System (MMCFS) , average temperatures are likely to be higher by 0.5°C across most subdivisions of peninsular India and some subdivisions of east and central India.
IMD said that the impact of above-normal mean temperatures will be mostly felt in the “core cold wave zone” which covers most of north-west India, including Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Haryana,
About Core Cold Wave Zone
AS per IMD, the Core CW zone covers states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Telangana and met subdivisions of Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh, Marathawada, Vidharbha, Saurashtra and Madhya Maharashtra.
About Coupled Forecasting System
The MMCFS has a spatial resolution of about 38 km and improved modules of model physics. The model climatology was prepared based on retrospective forecasts for 27 years (1982-2008).
About Seasonal Temperature Forecasting
Since 2016, India Meteorological Department (IMD) under Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has been issuing seasonal forecast outlooks for subdivision scale temperatures over the country for both hot and cold weather seasons based on predictions from the Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecasting System (MMCFS) Model developed under MoES’s monsoon mission project .(Source: IMD)
