Delhi sizzles: One station records 52.9°C, Met dept says checking data and sensors

The Safdarjung weather observatory, which serves as the marker for the entire city, registered a maximum temperature of 46.8 degree Celsius on Wednesday, the highest in 80 years. It was six degrees higher than the normal expected at this time of the year, and the highest that the station has recorded since 1944. But it was substantially lower than the temperature at Mungeshpur, located on the northern outskirts of Delhi, bordering Haryana.

“The maximum temperature over Delhi NCR varied from 45.2 degree Celsius to 49.1 degree Celsius in different parts of the city. Mungeshpur reported 52.9 degree Celsius as an outlier compared to other stations. It could be due to an error in the sensor of local factors. IMD is examining the data and sensors,” the India Meteorological Department said in a statement.

The IMD runs 20 weather stations in Delhi, 15 of which are automatic weather stations, or AWS, including Mungeshpur. The closest to the Mungeshpur station is the Narela station, located about 16 km away, which recorded a maximum of 48.4 degree Celsius. Incidentally, the Narela station had recorded the same temperature as Mungeshpur on Tuesday, 49.9 degree Celsius.

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Najafgarh station recorded 49.1 degree Celsius, the highest for any Delhi observatory on Wednesday, while Pusa Road recorded 49 degree Celsius.

Unlike Mungeshpur, Safdarjung is a manual observatory, where observations are taken manually every three hours. Automatic weather stations, which form the bulk of the IMD network with 800 of them installed across the country, record and transmit weather parameters without human intervention.

Data for the Mungeshpur weather station is available from 2022 onwards, and 52.9 degree Celsius is the highest that the station has recorded ever.

Kuldeep Srivastava, scientist, IMD, said that an IMD team was sent on Wednesday to verify the data at the weather station. The Mungeshpur reading was withdrawn from a city weather bulletin later but was restored in an updated bulletin late evening.

Wednesday was the fourth consecutive day of heatwave conditions at the Safdarjung observatory — the IMD records a heatwave when the maximum temperature is 45 degrees or more. The last time a higher maximum temperature was recorded was on May 29, 1944 — 47.2 degree Celsius, according to IMD data.

Amid the heatwave conditions and a water crisis in the city, the Delhi government on Wednesday announced a Rs 2,000 fine for anyone wasting water by washing vehicles with a hose or letting the water tank overflow. Delhi Water Minister Atishi, who had on Tuesday appealed to the people to conserve water, directed the Delhi Jal Board to deploy 200 teams across the city from 8 am Thursday to check for water wastage.

Close on the heels of the soaring temperatures came strong winds and rainfall that were not on the IMD forecast till Wednesday afternoon. The forecast for rainfall was updated in the afternoon, Srivastava said.

Srivastava attributed the rainfall to the impact of a western disturbance bringing moisture-bearing southwesterly winds from the Arabian Sea. “Intense heating also contributed to the formation of clouds and rainfall,” he said.

He said the impact of this western disturbance is likely to be seen for the next two or three days. According to the IMD forecast, thunderstorms and very light rainfall are likely in Delhi on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The rainfall helped break a long dry spell in the city. Till Wednesday, Delhi recorded only 0.4 mm of rainfall in May, when the normal or long period average till May 29 is 29.1 mm, marking a deficit of 99%. This follows a 54% deficit in rainfall in April and an even larger deficit of 75% in March.

Srivastava said the rain deficit contributed to the heat build-up. “Clear skies and westerly winds from Rajasthan where temperatures have hit 50 degrees have contributed to the heat in Delhi-NCR. Climatology-wise, this is also the time of intense heating across northwest India, including Delhi-NCR. There has been an absence of western disturbances. After one around May 10, we are seeing a western disturbance affecting northwest India now,” he said.

Other parts of northwest India also recorded heatwave conditions on Wednesday, including parts of Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.