India 2022: An assessment of extreme weather events (January-September)

This report was published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, and Down To Earth – an online magazine, on November 1, 2022. The report has been written by Kiran Pandey from CSE and Ranjit Sengupta from Down To Earth. It sources data on climate from official sources, including the Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences, and the Disaster Management Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines an extreme weather event as an event that is "rare at a particular place and time of year”. As per data collected in the report, in the 273 days between January 1 and September 30, 2022, India experienced extreme weather events on 241 days. This amounts to around 90 per cent of the days. The extreme weather events mapped in this report include “lightning and thunderstorms, heavy to very, and extremely heavy rainfall, landslides and floods, coldwaves, heatwaves, cyclones. snowfall, dust and sandstorms, squalls, hailstorms and gales.” The report notes the number of deaths caused due to such events and the crop area affected...