Certain North Indian states continued to witness heat wave conditions. Maximum temperatures were 40-41 degrees Celsius in parts of West Rajasthan, Uttar Haryana and Gujarat, as per Indian Meteorological Department data on June 23. The rainfall deficit has hovered around 18% across the country; northern India still faces huge deficits compared to other parts.
“Rise in maximum temperature by about 2°C very likely over most parts of West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Punjab during next 3 days and no significant change thereafter,” IMD said Sunday.
Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand faced the highest energy shortages, according to data released on Sunday.
A Moneycontrol analysis of data by IMD shows that heat wave days faced by north Indian states increased further in the third week of June compared with the previous week, with some of the sub-divisions like Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh experiencing seven heat wave days between June 13 and June 19.
A heat wave is described when maximum temperatures reach over 40 degrees Celsius in plains and over 30 degrees Celsius in hilly regions and are 4.5 to 6.4 degrees Celsius above normal for two consecutive days at two stations.
Meanwhile, the monsoon tracker indicates that north Indian states are yet to receive normal rainfall, as most states are staring at rainfall deficits of over 50%. In Delhi, the rainfall deficit narrowed to 57% below the long-term average of 30 years.
This is also impacting reservoir levels across the country. India’s average reservoir levels are down 9% compared with the previous year.
Power data indicates India faced an energy shortage of 9.4 million units on June 22 compared with 6.6 million units the previous day.
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