Several parts of India hotter than usual already: IMD

Several parts of the country are recording maximum temperatures of above 40 degrees Celsius, according to the India Meteorological Department’s heat bulletin on Thursday. These include Vidarbha, Marathwada, west and Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and west Uttar Pradesh.

Some states are recording maximum temperatures as high as five degrees above normal, such as Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Saurashtra and Kutch, at a few places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi. The maximum temperature is about three degrees above normal in the northeastern states, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, among others.

The highest maximum temperature on Wednesday was at Akola in the Vidarbha region at 43.4 degrees C. “These regions in central and west India are climatologically prone to heat in this period. There are also clear skies and no weather systems affecting these places,” said K Sathi Devi, head, national weather forecasting centre.