Anecdotal accounts counsel that India’s hills and mountains haven’t obtained as a lot snow this winter as they did prior to now regardless of the spell of snowfall late final week. While snowfall information isn’t obtainable from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), its rainfall statistics counsel that this could possibly be the case.

However, rainfall information alone can’t present the presence or lack of snow, which can also be a operate of temperature. It is in fixing this drawback of measurement that satellites will help. HT analysed NASA’s FLDAS2 Noah-MP GDAS Land Surface Model information for the Central Asia area – it provides every day information on snow from October 1, 2000 – to search out how a lot snow India’s northern states have obtained this winter. This is what the info reveals.