By Imlisanen Jamir
There was a time when you could plan your week around a weather forecast. It might have come from a newspaper, a radio bulletin, or an elder reading the sky, but it was something you could hold on to. Now, even that small certainty seems to be slipping away.
The daily weather report—once a trusted tool for farmers, shopkeepers, travellers, and schoolchildren—has started to feel like a coin toss. One app says clear skies, another shows rain. The satellite maps swirl with color, the numbers scroll past, and still, you find yourself caught in a sudden downpour or sweating through an unexpected heatwave. The forecast hasn’t just become unreliable. It’s started to feel meaningless.
Part of the blame lies with us. We’ve surrounded ourselves with too much information—dozens of apps, hourly updates, five-day predictions, ten-day guesses—all pinging with conflicting signals. What was once a simple heads-up has become a digital noise storm. But the deeper culprit is more sobering: the climate itself is no longer playing by the rules.
Where seasons once followed familiar rhythms, now they veer off-script. Rains arrive late or not at all. Winters stretch too long or vanish early. A year’s worth of weather crashes down in a single week, flooding homes and flattening crops. Across Northeast India and beyond, what used to be “freak” weather is becoming routine. The past no longer predicts the future—and forecasting depends on patterns that no longer exist.
In places that once had strong seasonal anchors—be it spring sowing or monsoon harvest—this breakdown isn’t just inconvenient, it’s existential. Livelihoods are tied to the land, and when the land no longer responds in time, uncertainty seeps into everything. Even festivals and communal events, once timed by the calendar of the skies, now drift unmoored.
And it’s not just farmers who feel it. City dwellers too find themselves caught off guard—drenched without warning, or stranded when a road becomes a river. Over time, this uncertainty begins to weigh. If we can’t even trust tomorrow’s weather, what else is slipping out of our grasp?
We are not powerless. Forecasting models are improving, and localised data can help. But more importantly, we must learn to plan with uncertainty, not against it. That means investing in infrastructure that can withstand extremes, crops that can adapt, and policies that don’t assume the past is a reliable guide.
The death of the weather forecast isn’t just a technical failure. It’s a symbol of a world changing faster than our tools can keep up. But if we can let go of the illusion of control—and instead focus on resilience, readiness, and respect for the forces at play—we might yet learn to live under this new, unpredictable sky.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
