# Ajayan | With the southwest monsoon making its first landfall in Kerala on Thursday, three days behind schedule, old anxieties return on the wings of rain. If the devastating floods of 2018 swept away much of the romance once associated with the season, this year's monsoon arrives beneath the twin shadows of El Nino and an impending heatwave. The UN has already warned of an 80 per cent chance of El Nino conditions and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has projected below-normal monsoon rainfall this season with above-normal temperatures in several regions during June.
Climatologists warn that this could be a Super El Nino, among the strongest on record. With Pacific Ocean temperatures projected to soar 2.5 degrees Celcius above normal, weather patterns may be thrown into disarray. The resulting heat could weaken the monsoon, drying up drinking water sources and casting a long shadow over agriculture.
El Nino is a natural climate phenomenon in which the surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm. This warming creates a vast low-pressure zone, altering wind patterns and disrupting the normal movement of moisture-laden winds. Under ordinary conditions, cool Pacific winds carry water vapour towards the warmer landmasses of Asia and Australia, helping drive the monsoon. But during an El Nino year, this atmospheric rhythm gets disturbed.
More worrying, climatologists fear the phenomenon could intensify by winter, after the northeast monsoon normally waters Kerala and other eastern regions, and linger for as long as two years, prolonging its influence on weather patterns across the globe.
Studies have linked El Nino to some of the most devastating droughts and famines in history, including the great Indian famines of 1876–78 and 1899–1900. Its reach extended far beyond India, unsettling weather patterns across Asia, Africa and South America, and leaving a trail of crop failures, water scarcity and human suffering then.
The IMD has already forecast a monsoon that could be 7–8 per cent below normal. Even as the first monsoon spells sweep across the landscape, heat lingers stubbornly. Thunderstorms, sudden flashes of lightning and fierce gusts, hallmarks of the departing summer, continue to punctuate the season’s opening days, hinting at a monsoon arriving to a climate already out of tune.
During a typical monsoon, the skies are dotted with shallow, cotton-like cumulus clouds that rarely rise high enough to generate thunder or lightning. But as temperatures climb, these clouds surge upward with greater force and speed. The extra heat fuels powerful convection currents, lifting moisture-laden clouds to towering heights where electrical charges build and collide, unleashing flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder. What were once gentle rain clouds are transformed into storm-bearing giants.
Adding to the concern is the growing threat of sudden heavy and extreme downpours. Scientists note that for every 1 degree rise in temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7 per cent more moisture. When this excess water vapour is eventually released, it often descends in intense bursts, turning ordinary rain into torrential downpours and raising the risk of floods and landslides.
Environmentalists say the looming threat demands a renewed commitment to conserving water right from the grassroots. Rivers, ponds, streams and reservoirs must be protected as carefully as forests, which are vital buffers against climate extremes. They advocate large-scale afforestation and urge a pause on development projects that come at the cost of tree cover, at least till the end of this Super El Nino cycle, expected to stay for up to two years.
