The latest advisory from the Indian Meteorological Department warns of severe heatwaves that will affect large parts of eastern India and the Ganges Plain in the coming days.
DS Pai of IMD, during a conversation with CNBC-TV18suggested this year could surpass 2023 temperature records and possibly become the warmest on record.
Eastern India is expected to experience intense heat with a heat wave warning being issued for the Ganges region of West Bengal along with parts of northern Odisha over the next five days, the weather department said.
Bihar and Jharkhand also experience a high probability of heatwaves during this period. The weather department has forecast heatwave-like conditions across the country in the coming week.
The IMD’s latest bulletin indicates that many areas of Gangetic West Bengal and parts of Odisha are experiencing “heat wave to severe heat wave conditions”. Isolated places in Bihar, Jharkhand, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rayalaseema, interior Karnataka and eastern Uttar Pradesh are also expected to experience heat waves in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Mumbai has received its second heatwave advisory in two weeks, with IMD predicting that hot and humid conditions will continue in the city in the coming days.
The month of May is expected to bring heatwaves in central and northwestern India, partly attributed to the ongoing El Nino phenomenon. El Nino, a climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean, has the potential to influence global weather patterns by weakening trade winds and redistributing warm water to the west coast of the Americas.
Earlier last week, the IMD forecast an ‘above normal’ monsoon in 2024, which could quantitatively be around 106 percent of the long-term average (LPA).
The forecast comes with a model error of plus/minus 5 percent.
This is the first time since 2016 that IMD has predicted ‘above normal’ rainfall in its first forecast.
An El Niño, which is expected to become neutral by the time the monsoon season begins in June and then gradually move towards La Niña, a positive dipole in the Indian Ocean, and subnormal snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere from January to March, will all work together to ensure India has a good monsoon according to IMD.
In 2023, the southwest monsoon was ‘lower than normal’ due to the effect of El Niño, the first time in the previous four years.
The Met department said that nearly 75-80 percent of the country’s landmass is expected to experience normal monsoon this year, except some areas in the extreme northwest (hills of Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand), eastern and northeastern -India (such as some parts of Assam, Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal) where monsoon rainfall may be below normal.
First print: April 26, 2024 | 5:37 PM IST