The Indian Heat Wave 2016 that has been crippling the country for the last few days is scorching large swathes of the country with some never seen before temperatures at this time of the year. Bankura in West Bengal broke its all time record for hottest April temperature yesterday by recording 46 degrees with the previous record of 45.8 recorded in 2009. Similarly Anantapur in Andhra has been scaling new heights almost on a daily basis for the hottest April day ever recorded with the current record standing at 44.3 degrees set on 14th April.
To give a comparison of how bad this year has been we tried to map some of the h2016ottest places of yesterday with available data for last year. Ideally we would have loved to complete this exercise in full but due to lack of data we were able to only complete it partially. But the available data clearly indicates the gravity of the situation. Almost all of the places where comparison is available are on an average 10 degrees hotter than same day last year. This is holding good for places in North like Varanasi and in South like Anantapur as well. Similar trend is seen in East India as well. To put things in perspective the hottest place last year on 16th April was Bhuj in Gujarat recording 42.5 degrees and only 4 places recorded temperatures in excess of 40 degrees, all of them in West India.
Even ignoring for a minute comparison over last year and this year yesterday shows the gravity of the situation when one tabulates the number of places under various temperature levels. While day before yesterday saw only one place record in excess of 45 degrees, yesterday saw 9 places record more than 45 degrees while a whopping 31 places recorded above 44 degrees. Between Yesterday and Day Before almost 150 places in the country has recorded more than 40 degrees (considered the threshold level for Heatwave). This pretty much sumps up the status of the Indian Heat Wave 2016
There seem to be no signs of the Indian heat wave coming down in places like Telengana, Vidharbha & Odisha with another extremely hot day expected in these regions with few places expected to cross 45 degrees once again today in these areas. Most of Telengana is likely to see temperatures above 42 degrees with the northern part of the state expected to see extremely oppressive conditions.
While yesterday saw marginal reduction in temperatures across Tamil Nadu, today the interiors could once again see slight increase in temperatures compared to yesterday particularly in the North Tamil Nadu region. Coastal Areas north of Nagapattinam should see temperatures in the region of 36° while the ones in South will possibly see a couple of degrees lesser.