New Delhi: India is sizzling under a heatwave, and the coming months are only going to get worse. The India Meteorological Department forecast an intense summer season for north and central India. The prediction is already coming true, with cities across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab already hovering around the 45 degrees Celsius mark.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast, the entire northwest and central India is headed for a scorching summer. However, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Gujarat, and Telangana will be in the centre of it, with average temperatures in May and June staying above normal.
After a cooler-than-usual start to April, temperatures across India have started rising. Over the weekend, Banda in Uttar Pradesh recorded a maximum temperature of 47.4 degrees Celsius, and in Maharashtra’s Akola, the temperature peaked to 46.9 degrees Celsius—the highest daytime temperature this season.
Rajasthan’s Barmer recorded 46.4 degrees Celsius, and Jaisalmer recorded 46 degrees Celsius. The temperature in Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi also stayed between 42 and 45 degrees Celsius.
“In many cities, the temperatures have been over five degrees above the normal range. In fact, the average range of departure has been 3-5 degrees Celsius. There might be a temporary relief this week, but temperatures will start rising again from the first week of May,” a senior IMD official told ThePrint.
On Monday, according to AQI.in—a Delhi-based environmental monitoring organisation that ranks cities on markers including temperature and pollution recordings in real-time—99 out of the 100 hottest cities in the world were from India.
The hottest city was Fatehpur (Uttar Pradesh), followed by Banda (Uttar Pradesh), Bindki (Uttar Pradesh), Kripalu Dham Mangarh (Uttar Pradesh), and Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh).
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Warning bells
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), an international body of meteorologists and climate scientists, has also warned of record heat in India this summer.
In its Global Seasonal Climate update issued last week, WMO said that there was a clear shift in the equatorial Pacific being observed, with the sea surface temperatures rising rapidly. Experts said that this was indicative of an El Niño event, which could hit the Indian sub-continent as early as May.
“After a period of neutral conditions at the start of the year, climate models are now strongly aligned, and there is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow,” WMO’s chief of climate prediction, Wilfran Moufouma Okia, said in a statement.
El Niño is a phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific, moving between warm and cool phases. Its warm phase is called El Niño, which is characterised by the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, typically occurring every 2-7 years.
“Models indicate that this may be a strong event—but the so-called spring predictability barrier is a challenge for the certainty of forecasts at this time of year. Forecast confidence generally improves after April,” Moufouma added.
In India, the intense heat is likely to be made worse by the lower-than-normal forecast of the southwest monsoon. The IMD has predicted that India is expected to receive 92 per cent of the normal rainfall this season.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)