The world is bracing for a “super” El Niño, and its effects are already being felt in India, where the monsoon has brought less rain than average but more intense downpours.
Meteorologists predict that the current El Niño, which is developing over the Pacific, could be one of the strongest in living memory. India is likely to be heavily affected, particularly later in the monsoon, when El Niño’s influence tends to strengthen.
But, as Ligin Joseph of the University of Southampton explains in The Conversation, its effects on India’s monsoon are not straightforward. A previous study in Science found that El Niño tends to bring more extreme summer monsoon rainfall to India.
This year, the southern state of Kerala has felt the brunt of the building super El Niño, with about a fifth less rain than normal. Yet intense downpours in the first week of August triggered flash flooding and landslides, killing 26 people.
The super El Niño is expected to peak after India’s monsoon season, but Indians are already keeping an anxious eye on the skies, wondering where and when the next deluge may come.
