Nowgaon in Madhya Pradesh hottest with 49 degrees Celsius

BHOPAL: Blazing summer continues in Madhya Pradesh breaking all the records of heatwave as the highest day temperature of 49 degrees Celsius was recorded in Nowgaon in Chattarpur district on Monday. The small city with less than a lakh population came to a grinding halt as the mercury soared to a new height.
Witnessing a prolonged spell of heat wave, in fact the whole state is reeling under blistering hot wave conditions as the temperatures vary from 42 degrees Celsius to 49 degrees Celsius.At many places, the temperatures were 6 degrees Celsius to 7 degrees Celsius above the average day temperatures.
The city centre of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) termed it “exceptional heatwave condition”.
If the British era town of Nowgaon was the hottest spot in MP, 68 kms from here Khajuraho, also in Chattarpur district of Bundelkhand in MP, recorded 48 degrees Celsius. Gwalior in northern MP also with 48 degrees Celsius shared the place of second hottest city of the state with Khajuraho.
The neighbouring Damoh along with Guna in Gwalior division and Rewa and Satna in Vindhya Pradesh recorded 47 degrees Celsius on Monday.
The city office of the IMD attributed the intense heatwave conditions in these regions to “north westerly winds coming from Rajasthan.”
“There is a heat low taking place in the desert region of Pakistan adjacent to Rajasthan creating heatwave," the IMD office explained.
The extraordinary heat wave conditions can be gauged from the fact that the record day temperature of 49 degrees Celsius in Nowgaon was 7.2 degrees Celsius above the normal. In Khajuraho and Damoh where 48 degrees Celsius was recorded, the temperature was 7 degrees Celsius above the normal.
Anupm Kashyapi, former director of the IMD in Bhopal and head of weather IMD Pune said, “there will be no let-up in the heatwave for atleast two days. The temperature may come down a little after Wednesday.”
Explaining the hot weather conditions he said, “after a prolonged winter till mid- March, there has been a prolonged summer which is likely to continue till the third week of June after summer solstice on June 21- the longest summer day.”
He said that the hot weather conditions were continuing also because “there were no pre monsoon showers”.
Bhopal recorded 45 degrees Celsius on Monday which was 7 degrees Celsius. With 31 degrees Celsius in the night ( 5 degrees Celsius above the normal), the IMD termed it “warm night”.