Warmer nights over next 48 hours in Pune

The city, which recorded a minimum temperature of 11.6 degrees early on Tuesday morning, is expected to record temperatures in the region of 12 degrees over the next 48 hours, making December 2011 one of the warmer Decembers in recent times.

The minimum temperature on December 20 last year was 6.5 degrees Celsius. According to the duty officer, weather forecasting, at India meteorological department (IMD), Johnson K Samuel, there are multiple reasons responsible for the warmer nights. Moisture-laden easterly winds have been moving from the Bay of Bengal over peninsular India over the last few weeks, obstructing the flow of the cold, north-westerly winds from northern India.

“The easterlies have also prevented the formation of the important, anti-cyclonic winds which carry cold winds from northern India into peninsular India,” Johnson said. He said minimum temperatures in Pune could dip lower than 12 degrees Celsius after the next three days.

The Indian Meteorological Society’s Pune chapter will be holding the annual monsoon workshop 2011 and the PR Pisharoty second distinguished lecture at the National Chemical Laboratory auditorium on Wednesday.

The day-long workshop will see Kamal Puri, senior principal research scientist at the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, deliver the lecture on ‘Modelling weather and climate: current status and future direction.’

IMD’s deputy director general of meteorology, Medha Khole, will speak on Monsoon 2011; DS Pai on ‘Long range forecasts’ and Suryachandra Rao of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorological will speak on monsoon.