The West Wind Comes

A mother’s weather wisdom and the science behind the storms that shape winter life in Kashmir.

- Mohammad Amin Mir

On winter afternoons in our home in south Kashmir, my mother would pause at the doorway and look up.

She did not need a phone alert or a forecast on television. She watched the poplars bend, felt the air turn colder on her face, and said the same line she had said for years: when the wind comes from the west, rain or snow will follow.

Soon enough, clouds would thicken over the mountains, and by evening the first drops or flakes would arrive.

I carried that sentence with me for decades as I walked this land, watched rivers swell and thin, and saw fields change colour with the seasons. Only much later did I learn the scientific name for what my mother described so plainly.

Meteorologists call them Western Disturbances, traveling storms born far away that decide how our winters unfold. The science added detail and distance, but it never replaced the truth of her words. It gave them another layer.

Western Disturbances begin over the Mediterranean and nearby seas, thousands of kilometers from Kashmir. They form as low-pressure systems and are carried east by high-altitude winds known as the westerly jet stream.

Along the way, they gather moisture, sometimes pulling more from the Arabian Sea. When these systems meet the Himalayas, the air rises, cools, and releases rain in the valleys and snow on the high slopes.

This process explains why Srinagar may see cold rain while Gulmarg turns white under the same sky. Elevation decides the outcome, and gravity does the rest.

For Jammu and Kashmir, these storms matter more than most people outside the region realize.