Climate of Punjab

Punjab Geography and Environment

Climate of Punjab

What is Climate?
Climate is the statistics of weather over long periods of time. It is measured by assessing the patterns of variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological variables in a given region over long periods of time.

What type of climate is mainly found in Punjab?
In broad terms, the climate of Punjab is classified as Subtropical Semi-arid climate type.

Why different type of climate in Punjab?

The southwest of the state is dry, eventually merging into the Thar Desert. The Shiwalik Hills extend on the north-eastern part of the state at the foot of the chain. The soil characteristics area unit influenced to a restricted extent by the geography, plant life and parent rock. The variation in profile characteristics area unit way more pronounced attributable to the regional climatic variations.
Hence, the geography and subtropical latitudinal location of Punjab lead to large variations in temperature from month to month.
The northeast space lying close to the foothills of the chain receives significant rain, whereas the realm lying any south and west receives less rain and experiences higher temperatures.
Even though only limited regions experience temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F), ground frost is commonly found in the majority of Punjab during the winter season.

Broadly there are 3 regular seasons whereas 2 transitional seasons are found in Punjab-
1)   Hot and Dry Season (mid-April to the end of June)
2)   Rainy Season (early July to the end of September)
3)   Cold Season (early December to the end of February)

Transitional seasons-
a) Pre-summer season (Mar to mid of April); this is the period of transition between winter and summer season.
b) Post-monsoon season (Sep to Nov end); this is the period of transition between monsoon and winter season

Regular Seasons-

Name of the Season	Formation	Characterstics
1. Hot and Dry Season	With the northward shift of sun towards the Tropic of Cancer after the vernal Equinox the temperature begins to rise Tropical continental air mass covers the region. This warm air mass with its source in south-west Asia gets more heated when it passes over Punjab. The wind coming into circulation round the low pressure area of Punjab becomes turbulent and acquires a steep gradient giving rise to Dust storms. These dust storms invariably blow away the harvested crops from the fields.	From May to June, a hot and dry westerly wind called ‘loo’ blows during the entire afternoon, which increases the temperature. It is desiccating and scorching wind. At this time, the region has the lowest pressure. During this Hot & Dry period, Punjab becomes an area of very low pressure, thus forcing the south-west monsoons to reach this region by end of June.
2. Rainy Season	Due to development of low pressure area in Punjab by the end of June, it receives the south- west monsoon earliest in the country. In Punjab both the Arabian Sea branch and Bay of Bengal branch of monsoons meet to give moderate rainfall in its eastern hilly districts. The amount of rainfall decreases towards the west and south- west of these hilly districts.	With the first rain starts, there starts the sowing of kharif crop i.e. start of agricultural year. The poached land comes to life and bare brown landscape acquires green mantle within few day of the arrival of rains. There is greenery everywhere and nature is at its best.
3. Cold Season	The main reasons for the excessive cold in Punjab during this reasons are- Punjab being far away from the moderating influence of sea, thus experiences continental climate. Around February, the cold winds coming from Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan bring cold wave along with frost and fog over Punjab. In winters, North- East monsoon do not cause rainfall on Indian subcontinent as they move from land to the sea and due to the anti- cyclonic circulation on land. However, some weak temperate cyclones from the Mediterranean sea cause rainfall in Punjab. Although the amount is meagre, it is highly beneficial for Rabi Crops.	The cold weather season usually sets in by mid- November in Punjab and other parts of Northern India. December and January are the coldest months in the northern plain. Temperature variation is minimal in January The mean daily temperature remains below 21ºC over Punjab. The nigh temperature may be quite low, sometimes going below freezing point in Punjab.

Transitional Seasons-

Name of the Season

Formation

Characterstics

Autumn Season

Punjab is the first state in India to see the withdrawal of monsoon in September. Thus a gradual change in weather takes place which continuous so till the end of November.

The weather remains generally dry and fair in this transitional phase of climate.

The day temperature is generally high, but nights become pleasant in this season.

Spring season

At the advent of March, the temperature starts rising abruptly and the winter season begins to fade.

The frequency of western disturbances also starts decreasing by mid March. There may be a shower with hail storms which damage the standing crops.

The winds become warm and dry during the end of March and the change of weather in the beginning of April is rapid. By the middle of April, it ultimately emerges as the Hot season.

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