El Nino and other climatic factors have put paid to this year’s winter

Winter is turning out to be the most slippery customer: more evanescent than Indo-Pak camaraderie, more elusive than a consensus on climate change, more eagerly awaited than a sneak peek of Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock’s famous deerstalker hat, and seemingly as unlikely to happen as a Salman-Shah Rukh co-starrer. December was logged as the world’s warmest — and, in parts, the wettest — in more than a century, rendering more snowmen than just the Abominable one a mere figment of fevered imagination. Winter-wear retailers and radiator makers are probably the only ones feeling the chill this January — due to plummeting sales rather than temperatures, of course. Even the imminent arrival of a fog-bearing western disturbance is cold comfort.

October and November’s unusual balminess — averaging 1° Celsius above normal worldwide — hinted at the drift, but no one evidently thought that a certain El Niño would return to play (Christmas) party-pooper with such devastating expertise. The result is that winter has gone into a sulk somewhere, leading to daffodils, cherry blossoms and even asparagus doing a groundhog act, springing out way before time. Hopefully, Punxsutawney Phil himself will think twice about emerging on February 2, thereby guaranteeing an extra (if belated) six weeks of wintry weather.