Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a high-level meeting to review preparedness for the hot weather condition in the upcoming summer season and called for preparing separate awareness material for different stakeholders like common citizens, medical professionals, local body authorities and disaster response teams.
Cold-day conditions prevailed in parts of north India on Friday though the maximum temperatures rose slightly amid clear skies and sunshine during the day.
Heatwave conditions have been prevailing in Odisha since April 15 and the Gangetic West Bengal since April 17, according to the MeT department.
The health minister said the Centre has taken timely measures ahead of the summer season to address heatwave-related illnesses.
The necessary instrumentation will be installed by DOD within two years. The government has already sanctioned Rs 1,250 mn for the purpose.
La Nina, a weather pattern arising in the Pacific Ocean that causes heavy rain in South Asia, is assuming a neutral condition, senior India Meteorological Department officials have said. This suggests the country will have a near-normal southwest monsoon.
Ten to 20 days of heatwave are expected against the normal of four to eight days in the entire April-June period.
The India Meteorological Department's (IMD) regional centre for Mumbai has issued a 'yellow alert' for next three days, predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places.
India has roped in almost all the world's major weather forecasters in its effort to accurately forecast monsoon rains in the next four years.
The Met department blamed the malfunctioning of sensors kept at the Automated Weather Station for the gaffe.
Temperatures in 17 locations breached 45 degrees Celsius on Monday, with the punishing heat affecting health and livelihoods.
The IMD said that rainfall over India in August and September would be around 106 percent of the long-period average of 422.8 mm.
Wind speed at the time is expected to be in the range of 125-135 kmph gusting up to 150 kmph.
Amid a cold wave prevailing in parts of northern India, Palam in Delhi recorded a minimum temperature of 6.5C while Safdarjung recorded a minimum temperature of 5C, said India Meteorological Department on Monday.
The system, which moved towards Bangladesh from north Bay of Bengal at a speed of 56 kmph caused moderate to heavy rain and squally weather in West Bengal's coastal districts of South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur, dampening festive spirits on Deepavali and Kali Puja.
He said scientists have noticed a trend of very deep cloud systems developing over the southeast Arabian Sea, and added that sometimes, these systems intrude into the land, like in 2019.
Heatwave conditions are expected over northwest India during the next five days, with Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi predicted to bear the maximum impact, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday.
A depression over the southeast Arabian Sea, south of Porbandar in Gujarat, is likely to move northwestward and intensify into a cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department said on Tuesday.
After remnants of cyclone Gulab that hit the eastern coast of the country brought torrential rains to central Maharashtra, a senior India Meteorological Department official said on Wednesday that we are witnessing a rare occurrence as the weather system might generate another cyclonic storm.
"This year, the Southwest Monsoon is likely to set over Kerala on May 31 with a model error of four days," the India meteorological department said on Wednesday.
The meteorological department in India has predicted that there will be normal monsoon rains next month that will result in better crops for the country's 234 million farmers.
The city recorded a minimum temperature of 14.6 degrees Celsius, a notch above normal, according to the India Meteorological Department.
A civic volunteer, identified as Chandan Das (31), died on the spot when he allegedly touched a live wire in Bud Bud in Purba Bardhaman district. The incident happened when he was out with a police team, they said.
The situation in rain-battered Gujarat improved slightly on Thursday as the rainfall activity subsided, but Vadodara and some other parts of the state are still reeling under a flood-like situation due to overflowing rivers while the authorities continue the rescue and relief operations.
The India meteorological department's Mumbai centre has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in the city and suburbs in the next 24 hours, with a possibility of occasional gusty winds reaching 50-60 kmph, the official said.
>Bihar (18 days) has the most number of heatwave days in 2023, followed by Andhra Pradesh (15 days), Odisha (15 days), Jharkhand (13 days), West Bengal (8 days) and Tamil Nadu (6 days).
Heavy rain in the first week of July compensated for the shortfall but caused flooding in many northeastern states.
In view of the safety of the passengers, the district administration stopped the passengers at Sonprayag and Gaurikund due to continuous bad weather.
As per IMD classification, "heavy to very heavy rainfall" means precipitation ranging from 64.5 mm to 204.4 mm in a period of 24 hours.
As heavy rains continue to lash Kerala, the India meteorological department on Friday issued an orange alert in eight districts in Kerala for Friday.
It is in more than a decade that the IMD has predicted 'above-normal' rains in the country.
The met department said that rainfall in August is projected to be within the normal range at 97% of LPA. In August and September, India receives around 43 mm of rainfall.
Taking to Twitter, the Delhi Traffic Police asked commuters to take the alternate route.
On May 15, the weather office had announced the onset of monsoon over Kerala by May 31.
The average temperatures observed pan-India for April was 35.05 degrees, which was the fourth highest in 122 years.
India is likely to witness normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon season this year, the India Meteorological Department said on Thursday. Rainfall will be 96 per cent to 104 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) of 87 cm of the 1971-2020 period, it noted. Earlier, the IMD used to consider the LPA of 88cm of the 1961-2010 period.
The unrelenting heatwave sweeping large parts of the country has claimed at least 110 lives and left over 40,000 people grappling with suspected heatstroke between March 1 and June 18 this year, health ministry sources said on Thursday.
Heavy rains in Bengaluru on Wednesday night resulted in waterlogging, incidents of tree fall, damage to certain infrastructure and power outage in several parts.
June rainfall accounts for 15 percent of the total precipitation of 87 cm recorded during the four-month monsoon season in the country.
