Summer of 2024—many regions in for early heatwave conditions

Tribune Web Desk

Vibha Sharma

Chandigarh, March 21

Weather trends noticed in the past few years seem to be continuing in 2024. According to the weather data, many parts of the country appear to be headed for early heatwave conditions.

The India Meteorological Department today issued a “heatwave warning” for Saurashtra and Kutch regions and posted that “heat wave conditions are very likely in isolated pockets over Saurashtra and Kutch on March 21 (Thursday)”.

Maximum or day temperatures will remain “above normal by 6-8°C” over many parts of north India, including Jammu-Kashmir, Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad and by 2-4°C over Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, north Haryana and Gujarat in the coming five days, as per the IMD.  

Today minimum or night temperatures remained “appreciably above normal (3.1°C to 5.0°C) at isolated place over Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad, “above normal” (1.6°C to 3.0°C) at few places over West Rajasthan, Saurashtra and Kutch and isolated places over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Yesterday, too, the day temperature remained “markedly above normal” (5.1°C or more) at a few places over Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad, appreciably above normal (3.1°C to 5.0°C) at a few places over Punjab and Saurashtra & Kutch and above normal (1.6°C to 3.0°C) at isolated places over Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi, West Uttar Pradesh, West Rajasthan, Gujarat Region, it said.

The highest maximum temperature of 40.3°C was recorded at Rajkot.

According to meteorologists, hot weather conditions will be witnessed over parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra this week. Many parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra will remain in the grips of heatwave conditions over the next couple of days, they add.

If the normal maximum temperature of a station is more than 40°C, an increase of 4°C to 5°C from the normal temperature is considered to be heat wave condition.

Heat wave conditions in India are largely experienced between March/April and June/July. 

They primarily affect the plains of northwest India, central and eastern regions, along with northern part of Peninsular India.

2023—the warmest year

With the global average near surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. 2023 was the warmest 10-year period on record, as per the WMO.

Globally, every month from June to December was record warm for the respective month, it says.

Global average sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) also remained at a record high from April onwards with records in July, August and September broken by a particularly wide margin. 

Ocean heat content too reached its highest level in 2023.

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