NORTHWEST, CENTRAL INDIA GET HOTTEST APRIL IN 122 YRS

NEW DELHI: Northwest and central India have experienced the hottest April this season in 122 years, since the India Meteorological Department started keeping records. The rest of the country could see temperatures lower than normal in the month of May, but there would be no respite for northwest and central, the weather bureau said in its monthly forecast on Saturday.

Delhi continued to reel under a heatwave on Saturday as the maximum temperature at the Safdarjung observatory was recorded at 43.5 degrees Celsius, five notches above the season’s average. This was the second hottest April temperature for the national capital in 52 years.

India as a whole has recorded the fourth hottest April ever.

Northwest India sizzled at an average maximum temperature of 35.9 degrees Celsius in April, topping the previous record of 35.42 degrees in 2010, according to M Mohapatra, director general of meteorology. In central India, the average maximum was 37.78 degrees, marginally higher than 37.75 recorded in April 1973.

The high heat in north, northwest and central India were in part due to the absence of weather systems that bring rains or give rise to cloudy skies that can lower the mercury, Mohapatra said. Night temperatures remained above normal in April, with the average minimum temperature over northwest India settling at 19.44 degrees, 1.75 degrees above normal.

The states likely to be hit by higher than normal temperatures in May include Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.