The summer months of March-May last year were 1.36°C higher than the historical average, making it the second warmest since 1901.
Bengaluru saw a near-record temperature of 37.2 degree Celsius this week, but many localities in the city were much warmer. The Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre recorded the searing heat at different localities across the city’s concretised landscape.
On February 28, the IMD forecast “above normal” temperatures this summer in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana. A pedestrian in Bhubaneswar.
Delhiites started feeling the effect of the long summer months ahead after the maximum temperature in the city spiked by three degrees to settle at 38.0 degrees Celsius. A mirage shimmers over Rajpath leading to India Gate.
In 2015, Andhra Pradesh had 1,422 heat-related deaths. This came down to 723 the next year. Photo shows a woman selling pots despite the heat wave in Eluru of West Godavari district.
The IMD has said that Karnataka’s maximum temperature of 41.3 degrees Celsius was recorded in Kalaburagi on March 26, 2017. The temperature recorded in Kalaburagi was 1.7 degrees Celsius more than the average temperature recorded during the same period in the previous years.
Several hundred deaths due to heat stroke were reported in Telangana last year though the official number was pegged at around 320. The government has begun formulating an action plan to tackle the situation this year. A motorist using a car bumper as a shield from the sun in Hyderabad.
While there are nuances and region specific differences, the IMD broadly defines a heatwave as when a place’s temperature is 5-6°C above normal. Women walking in the scorching heat in Bhopal.
The IMD forecasts heatwaves on its website but a proper plan would mean that the States and district administrations would get warnings on the likelihood of temperatures rising to heatwave limits. A farmer in Basawapuram village of Chintakani mandal in Khammam district of Telangana State.
Cattle seen herding in the shade in Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu.