Delhi will continue to reel under an intense heatwave with the maximum temperature likely to touch 44 degrees Celsius on Friday, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The minimum temperature in the national capital was recorded two notches above normal at 25.8 degrees Celsius.”Heatwave conditions in some parts very likely over West Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha and in isolated places over Jammu, Punjab, Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, East Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, westem parts of Gangetic West Bengal, Telangana and interior Odisha,” the IMD said in a bulletin issued at 8:30 am.
The relative humidity in the city was recorded at 28 per cent at 8.30 am, the weather office said. For the plains, a heatwave is declared when the maximum temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius and at least 4.5 notches above normal.
As a blistering heatwave is sweeping through vast swathes of the country, Delhi saw the hottest April day in 12 years at 43.5 degrees Celsius on Thursday. The national capital had recorded a maximum temperature of 43.7 degrees Celsius on April 18, 2010.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) around 9 am was 304, according to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR). An AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor” and 401 and 500 “severe”.