Season’s first heatwave warning has already been issued for Kutch and Konkan regions.

On Sunday, the official weather forecaster sent out the first heatwave alert of the year, saying that high temperatures could reach 37–39°C in parts of the Kutch and Konkan regions. This is another sign that the country could skip spring and go straight into summer heat.

Officials said that this was the earliest a heatwave warning had ever been sent out for large parts of the country. Usually, these alerts are only sent out in March.

Temperatures have been 5 to 10°C higher than usual in large parts of west and northwest India and in many towns in the Himalayas. The highest daytime temperature in the Capital was 31.5°C, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said this is likely to stay the same for the next three to four days.

“There is still an anti-cyclone over Gujarat and the surrounding area. Because of this, air sinks, just like what we saw last spring. “When there is subsidence, the air gets compressed and gets a lot warmer,” said M Mohapatra, the director general of IMD.

“The highest temperatures in the west of the country have been going up by 3–4°C. This is especially bad in Gujarat, Saurashtra, and Kutch, where the highest temperatures are often more than 8 degrees above average,” Mohapatra said.

The weather will stay like this in northwest India until at least February 21. “After that, we expect a cyclonic circulation to form over Punjab and Haryana, which will cause the wind to shift from blowing in a south-westerly direction to blowing in a north-westerly direction. That might make people in northwest India feel better. But if the anticyclone stays in place like it did last year, very high maximums may continue over west India. In fact, an anti-cyclone that stuck around all of last year caused two heat waves in March and April,” he said.

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Last year, the average temperature for the month of March was the highest since records started being kept 123 years ago.

Some parts of the country have already seen temperatures above or close to 40°C. On Saturday, Bhuj recorded 39.5°C, which is 9 degrees above normal. Rajkot recorded 38.6°C, which is 8 degrees above normal. Surat recorded 37.2°C, which is 5 degrees above normal. Naliaya recorded 38.6°C, which is 9 degrees above normal, and Barmer recorded 38.3°C, which is 10 degrees above normal. On Saturday, the highest temperature in Shimla, which is in the hills, was 23.2°C, which is 11 degrees above average.

On Sunday, Bhuj recorded 38.8 degree C, 9 degrees above normal; Naliya recorded 35.6 degree C, 6 degrees above normal; Rajkot recorded 39.8 degree C, 9 degrees above normal; Ahmedabad 38.2, 7 degrees above normal; Mumbai 36.5, 5 degrees above normal; Goa 32.4 degree C; Gurugram 31.2 degree C. In the hills, Shimla had a temperature of 23.2°C, which is 11° above normal. Mussoorie had a temperature of 21.3°C, which was 9° above normal. Kangra had a temperature of 27°C, which was 8° above normal. Manali had a temperature of 18.7°C, which was 7° above normal.

The Western Himalayas are being affected by a weak western disturbance, which could bring light rain or snow to Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand from February 19 to 21.

“The anti-cyclone is still over southwest Rajasthan. Most places now have temperatures that are close to 40°C. Winds from Pakistan and Rajasthan blow from the south-west over west India and parts of northwest India. These winds are dry and warm. These things will stay the same. I don’t think things will get better until the 27th and 28th of February, when there might be some weather activity over northwest India. Mahesh Palawat, vice president of climate and meteorology at Skymet Weather, said, “It might be a short-term fix.”

Palawat also said that there seemed to be a change in the seasons. “The season is changing from spring to summer. Temperatures are about what we would expect for the end of March. So we miss spring. We don’t think the temperatures will drop by a lot again,” Palawat said.

Mohapatra, on the other hand, said that it didn’t mean that summer would start early because not the whole country was experiencing very high temperatures. “However, if the anti-cyclone stays, it could be a worry,” Mohapatra said.

Last year, in March and April, there was a very hot spell that scientists said was almost certainly caused by the climate crisis. It is thought that at least 90 people died because of that heatwave in India and Pakistan. It also caused an extreme flood in northern Pakistan called a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and forest fires in India, especially in the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

India’s wheat crop yields were also hurt by the extreme heat, which led the government to stop wheat exports and caused power outages in many parts of the country.

A heat wave is when the highest temperature is more than 40°C in the plains, more than 37°C along the coast, and more than 30°C in the hills, which is 4.5°C to 6.4°C above normal. This is more than 6.4 °C above normal during a very hot spell.

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