Temperature anomalies recorded in every month after April 2024

Temperatures –– maximum, minimum, or mean –– hit a record every month since last April , except for March this year, across India or in some parts of it, according to data from the India Meteorological Department’s monthly climate summaries, an indication of how the climate crisis has impacted all seasons.

Thus, April 2024 saw south peninsular India and east and northeast India record the second highest mean and highest mean temperatures respectively since 1901, when records begin.

Also Read: Delhi logs warmest March in 3 years amid cooler end

May saw east and northeast India and northwest India record their third highest mean and maximum temperatures.

June saw northwest India record its highest maximum temperature and east and northeast India, highest minimum temperatures.

July saw the entire country record the second highest mean temperature and east and northeast India, highest maximum temperature. Northwest India also recorded its second highest minimum temperature in the month.

Also Read: Pune sizzles at 39°C, logs season’s highest temperature

August, September, and October saw the entire country record its highest minimum temperatures. November saw northwest India record its highest maximum temperature and December saw south peninsular India do the same.

In 2025. January saw the entire country record its third highest maximum temperature. February was worse, and the entire country recorded its highest maximum temperature. March brought a much-needed respite, but with the infamous Indian summer ahead, the month may just serve to heighten the contrast.

Heat affects lives and livelihoods in a country where 52% of agricultural land requires irrigation, and a significant proportion of the population works outdoors. Excessive unseasonal heat also disrupts cropping cycles and could affect productivity, sparking inflation in an economy that has just got the genie into the bottle again.

To be sure, India wasn’t a global outlier. The country’s warming trends can be correlated with record temperatures globally. February marked the 19th month in the last 20 in which global average surface air temperatures exceeded the critical 1.5-degrees Celsius (over pre-industrial levels) threshold. This was partly due to an El Niño weather pattern that began in May 2023 and ended in May 2024. However, even during the subsequent weak La Niña phase which emerged in December and typically brings cooler temperatures, India experienced record heat in December, January and February.

“Warming accelerated in India also during the past year as it did globally. Despite the acceleration, our warming rates were lower than global trends. This can be seen in spatial maps. It is also important to note that January and February set records this year but March did not , even though parts of country started recording heat waves early this year. So we cannot yet confirm if this acceleration will continue,” said OP Sreejith, head, climate monitoring and prediction, IMD.

Experts from World Meteorological Organisation recently acknowledged an acceleration in the pace of warming between end of 2023 and 2024.

“The issue is we currently do not have an agreed mechanism to monitor global temperature rise in the context of the Paris Agreement goals. For example, which dataset to go by, how do we define warming-- surface temperature or air temperature, there are number of questions around this. So how quickly we will breach the 1.5 degree C goal is difficult to answer. In 2023-2024 temperatures have been higher than expected compared to background warming. It is being studied if this is a result of reduction in aerosols from certain sectors,” a WMO expert said during a technical briefing earlier this month on WMO’s State of the Global Climate report 2024.

It is expected that the warming spell will continue with La Nina’s cooling impact waning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last week that La Nina is weaking and ENSO neutral conditions are to develop in April and persist through Northern Hemisphere summer (62% chance in June-August 2025).

La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, such as winds, pressure and rainfall. El Nino is just the opposite, it represents the warm phase of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.

In India, an El Nino is associated with a harsher summer and weaker monsoon. La Nina, meanwhile, is associated with a strong monsoon, above average rains and colder winters.

However, naturally occurring climate events such as La Nina and El Nino are taking place in the broader context of the human-induced climate crisis, which is dialling up global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather and climate, and impacting seasonal rainfall and temperature patterns, WMO has warned.