Two weather observatories in Delhi — Mungeshpur and Najafgarh — recorded temperatures of over 49 degrees Celsius Sunday as the heat wave in the city marched on.
While Mungeshpur recorded a temperature of 49.2 degrees Celsius, that at Najafgarh was 49.1 degrees. The temperature at Safdarjung, which provides a marker for the city, was 45.6 degrees Celsius, five degrees above normal. The maximum temperature at Gurgaon was 48.1 degrees Celsius, nine degrees above normal. At Noida, it was 47.1 degrees. The temperature is expected to be between 41 and 28 degrees Celsius on Monday
The two stations at Mungeshpur and Najafgarh are automatic weather stations, which were made operational this year. According to IMD officials, a climatological profile of these areas is not available so far to draw conclusions about Sunday’s temperature. “To understand what the normal climatology of a place is, what normal temperatures for any time of the month are, one needs data for at least 30 years. It is good that these new stations are coming up to gather data for the future. Observatories such as Safdarjung, Lodhi Road, Palam and Aya Nagar are older and data is available for several years,” said K Sathi Devi, scientist at IMD.
At Safdarjung Observatory, the highest temperature ever recorded in May is 47.2 degrees Celsius. This was recorded on May 29, 1944. Sunday’s temperature at the observatory was the highest for May since 2013, when the maximum settled at 45.7 degrees. According to IMD officials, the reason behind high temperatures is the lack of rain throughout summer this year.
“Western disturbances that have affected Northwest India over the past few weeks have not had much impact in Delhi because their depth and intensity has been low. This means there has hardly been any rain so far in Delhi to interrupt heat. Last week, a short respite was seen because of a cloud cover but as it did not bring rain and only humidity, the impact was negligible,” said Devi.
May and April in Delhi, much like March, have been unusually dry with mostly trace amounts of rainfall seen so far. According to Devi, a western disturbance is expected to have an impact starting Monday, but temperatures are expected to drop only by a couple of degrees: “The activity will be concentrated mostly in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand. Isolated rain is expected in Punjab and Haryana but plains will remain unaffected and temperatures are not expected to dip below 40 degrees.”
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