Farmers lie on the ground with sticks as they pray for rain during the Manda festival at a temple on the outskirts of Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, yesterday. The festival takes place during the hot summer months as farmers pray for rain, prosperity and good health.
New Delhi: Searing summer heat continued to scorch the plains and hills across north India as temperatures remained over 45 degree Celsius yesterday. There will be no respite from the intense heat today, the weather office said.
Delhi reeled under blistering temperatures that shot up to five notches above the season’s average at 45 degrees Celsius.
While the minimum temperature settled three notches above average at 25.5 degrees Celsius in the national capital, the humidity wavered between a high of 45 and low of 22 percent.
According to the meteorological department, today’s maximum and minimum temperatures in Delhi are likely to hover around 45 and 31 degrees Celsius, respectively.
Thursday was the hottest day in Delhi in the past 10 years with the maximum temperature recorded 45.7 degrees Celsius, six notches above average.
The temperature recorded in Sriganganagar in Rajasthan was 48.6 degrees Celsius and at Nagpur in Maharashtra it was 46.6 degrees.
Even in hilly Shimla and Manali in Himachal Pradesh, the maximum temperatures were 30.8 degrees Celsius and 31.2 degrees, respectively, on Thursday, a Met department official.
Amritsar in Punjab on Thursday recorded its highest temperature in over three decades with the mercury hitting 48 degrees Celsius as severe heat wave conditions prevailed across the plains of Punjab and Haryana.
The highest temperature previously recorded in the city was 47.7 degrees Celsius on May 21, 1978.
There is more to the sizzling heat in Delhi than rising temperatures. Scientists have found unusually high levels of toxic ozone in the city in the past two weeks.
Exposure to high levels of ozone not only has adverse health effects, it also damages vegetation and ecosystems, according to scientists.
“Delhi’s air is known to get polluted mainly due to the rise in particulate matter, which can be felt when visibility becomes poor on extreme days,” Gufran Beig of Pune’s Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said.
IANS
