After unusually warm April, warmer days likely in May

After recording over 38 degrees Celsius for three consecutive days, residents heaved a sigh of relief Wednesday, as the temperatures dropped to 34.2 degrees Celsius.

While Santacruz recorded 34 degrees, the coastal observatory in Colaba registered 33.2 degrees on the mercury scale.

However, this relief is slated to be short lived, with the IMD issuing a yellow alert for hot and humid conditions in Mumbai, starting Saturday.

In Thane and Raigad, meanwhile, the weather bureau has sounded a heatwave warning from Saturday.

Sushma Nair, scientist from IMD Mumbai, said, “Currently, the temperatures have fallen in the range of 34 degrees. However, there is another anti-cyclonic circulation on the system, owing to which the district is under a watch. We have, therefore, issued a hot and humid warning for Mumbai. If the temperatures remain in the range of 33 degrees on Thursday as well, the temperatures won’t spike to 39 degrees.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the IMD scientists, in their monthly outlook stated that the western parts are slated to witness above normal temperatures this May, alongside a higher number of heat wave days in the western part of the country.

Responding to questions about Mumbai, Nair told The Indian Express, “There is 75 per cent probability of the city experiencing above normal maximum as well as minimum temperatures in the month of May. As far as the heat waves are concerned, it will depend on how much the temperatures deviate above the normal.”

For the record, a heatwave alert is issued in coastal regions when the temperature oscillates over 37 degrees Celsius or nearly 4.5 degrees above the normal for two consecutive days at least.

In what made for an exceptionally warmer April, this season, the city sizzled under six heatwave days, alongside a “severe” heatwave day, as it registered record breaking temperatures.

On April 16, when the IMD declared a “severe heatwave” in Mumbai and its neighbouring districts, the IMD’s Santacruz observatory registered a maximum temperature of 39.7 degrees Celsius. This was the city’s hottest April day in over a decade, when in 2014, the city clocked a maximum temperature of 39 degrees.

Coming along its heels, on April 29, Mumbai recorded 39.1 degrees Celsius, making it the city’s second hottest day of the decade.

According to IMD scientists, the country witnessed two spells of heatwave in April owing to longer dry spells with absence of rain, as well as the anticyclone which persisted mostly at lower levels over west central Bay and adjoining eastern coasts of India.