Severe heatwave sizzles Delhi

India’s capital Delhi continues to face the wrath of the heat wave, with the mercury soaring to 45.6 degrees Celsius in some parts of the city.

Kuldeep Srivastava, head of regional weather forecasting centre, said that Ayanagar observatory recorded the highest temperature at 45.6 degrees Celsius, five notches above normal on Sunday. On Saturday, the temperature in the area had shot up to 46.2 degrees Celsius, highest of the season so far.

Besides this, Safdarjung observatory recorded 44.4 degrees Celsius, Palam in southwest Delhi showed 45.4 degrees Celsius and the Lodhi Road observatory recorded a maximum temperature of 44.2 degrees Celsius.

Sonegaon in Nagpur district of Maharashtra recorded the maximum temperature in India on Sunday at 46.2 degrees Celsius. On Saturday, Pilani in Rajasthan had recorded 46.7 degrees Celsius.

Heat wave is considered if the maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 40 degrees Celsius or more for plains, 37 degrees Celsius or more for coastal stations and at least 30 degrees Celsius or more for Hilly regions.

With temperatures surpassing the 45 degrees Celsius-mark, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a "red warning" for Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Rajasthan.

Madhavan Rajeevan, the secretary with the earth sciences ministry said, severe heatwaves are likely to impact the states for the next 2-3 days and temperature will cross 45 degrees Celsius.

The weather bureau said that the condition will persist due to dry and northwesterly winds.

According to Mahesh Palawat of Skymet weather, Delhi and its surrounding region, and northern plains such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh will get relief soon due to commencement of pre-monsoon activities like rain and dust storm.

Madhavan Rajeevan further said that North Eastern states including Assam will witness heavy rains and flood warnings due to moisture incursion from Bay and Bengal.

The IMD said that there will be thunderstorms accompanied with lightning at isolated places over Gangetic West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry.

"Strong surface wind speed reaching 40-50 kmph likely to prevail over Southwest Arabian Sea and Odisha-West Bengal coast. Fishermen are advised not to venture into the sea," IMD stated.

Besides this, the overall air quality index of the capital shot up to 160 micrograms per cubic metre, with particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 and 10 microns which are too small to be filtered out of the body, stood at 68 and 204 micrograms per cubic metre, respectively.

In Pune, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, the AQI stood at 57, 44 and 82 micrograms per cubic.