On Thursday, Phalodi town in Rajasthan recorded the hottest temperature in India—ever. The day’s maximum in the desert town was a searing 51 degree Celsius.
Churu in the eastern part of the state also crossed the 50 degree Celsius mark.
Most parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are experiencing heat wave and severe heat wave conditions that are expected to continue through the weekend. The ten hottest towns in the country on Thursday are in these three states.
The Indian Meteorological Department predicted, in its first-ever summer forecast in early April, that the north-west part of the country would experience a particularly hot summer with temperatures for most of April and May being above normal.
Many other parts of north and central India also saw highs that were between three degree Celsius and five degree Celsius above normal for the season, including parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Delhi.
Warming world
The abnormally hot summer is not restricted to India. Not only was April 2016 the hottest April since record keeping began in 1880, it was also the 12th consecutive hottest month since then. According to the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the earth's temperature in April was 1.1 degree Celsius higher than the 20th century average for April and 0.28 degree Celsius higher than the previous record in 2010.
These numbers are shocking because global temperature records have so far been broken by only a few hundredths of a degree. But March and February saw similar temperature spikes away from the average and previous records.
2015 was the hottest year on record but the odds are increasing that 2016 will take the dubious distinction.
Here are a couple more global temperature factoids to worry about.
As this news report points out, records show that the only month that didn't cross the previous records in terms of being hot was April 2015. The last time Earth wasn't hotter than the 20th-century average was December 1984, and the last time Earth set a monthly cold record was almost a 100 years ago, in December 1916.
While north India continues to boil, Cyclone Roanu has cooled Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which were in the grip of intense heat waves for most of the summer, with many parts of the two states registering below normal temperatures.
The cyclone that lashed Kerala on Thursday brought record-breaking rainfall to the state, private weather forecaster Skymet reported. Thiruvananthapuram received 129 mm of rain in just 24 hours –the wettest the city has been in a decade.
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