According to the summer forecast issued by the India Meteorological Department, the first of its kind, for April to June, the seasonal temperature would be above normal by more than one degree Celsius over Northwest India.
There is also a high probability of 76 per cent of maximum temperatures in the core Heat Wave (HW) zone during the 2016 hot weather season to be above normal.
Core HW zone covers states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana and met sub-divisions of Marathwada, Vidharbha, Madhya Maharashtra and coastal Andhra Pradesh.
IMD has also attributed the El-Nino to the above normal temperature. 2015 was the warmest year ever recorded since 1901. The country has also witnessed warm January and February, making it the warmest winter.
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"The strong El Nino conditions over the Pacific Ocean that started in 2015 are still continuing. However, the latest forecasts indicate that El Nino conditions are likely to weaken further and reach weaker El Nino conditions during the 2016 hot weather season.
(REOPENS DEL 66)
The forecast indicates that during the 2016 hot weather season, temperatures (mean, maximum and minimum) in all the 36 sub-divisions of IMD are likely to be "above normal".
All the temperatures (maximum, minimum and mean) of most of the subdivisions from northwest India, Kerala from south India and Vidharbha from Central India are likely to be above normal or equal to one degree Celsius.
"The season averaged maximum temperatures of coastal Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Assam and Meghalaya, sub-Himalayan west Bengal & Sikkim Nagaland, Manipur Mizoram, & Tripura (NMMT), and Assam & Meghalaya are likely to be warmer than normal by less than 0.5 degree Celsius and that of the remaining subdivisions are likely to warmer than normal by 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius," the IMD said in the forecast.