Hyderabad: In what is being called an ‘unusually cool’ summer, this year, the state which falls in the core heatwave zone has witnessed no heatwave warnings till date.
The highest number of alerts were issued in 2010, which saw 46 heat waves across the state in the months of April, May and June. It was followed by 2019, with 44 heatwaves. They had claimed the lives of 11 and 64 people respectively. However, the highest number of deaths was registered in 2015, with 541 dead in the state.
Officials of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said the absence of heatwave was due to continuous presence of western disturbances in the area. “There were four disturbances which subdued the heat which is mostly felt in the months of April and May,” IMD director K Naga Ratna told this newspaper.
According to a report by IMD, heatwave conditions in April 2021 were occasional and also for shorter periods over very smaller pockets. The major cause was wet spells regularly observed over the western Himalayan region and adjoining plains of northwest India and adjoining central parts of India in the month in many days due to movement of western disturbances (WDs) at regular intervals as deep amplitude trough in middle and upper tropospheric westerly. Also, due to the presence of lower-level wind convergence on many days in the month, Maharashtra and adjoining parts of Peninsular India, experienced rainfall and thunderstorm activities at regular intervals. However, a few occasional shorter duration spells of the heatwave were reported at isolated pockets of a few meteorological subdivisions of the country.
It goes on to add that the month of April witnessed very heavy and heavy rainfall over South Peninsular India, which could have abated the heat.
