With 50.2 degrees Celsius, Nawabshah experiences hottest April day on Earth

Author: Agencies

NAWABSHAH: Temperatures soared to 50.2 degrees Celsius in Nawabshah, Sindh on Monday in what might just be the highest temperature ever reliably measured on Earth during April. A meteorologist at Meteo France, Etienne Kapikian, posted the observation on Twitter.

Etienne Kapikian’s Tweet claimed that it was the warmest April temperature ever recorded in Pakistan and the entire Asian continent.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) Director General Dr Ghulam Rasool confirmed that the temperature in Nawabshah on Monday was the highest ever recorded in Pakistan in the month of April.

The PMD DG, however, said he could not comment on world temperatures. The Washington Post quoted expert on global weather extremes Christopher Burt as saying it was probably also the highest temperature “yet reliably observed on Earth in modern records”.

The competing hottest April temperature of 51.0 degrees Celsius set in Santa Rosa, Mexico, in April 2001, is “of dubious reliability”, Christopher Burt said.

The Washington Post report added that we may never be able to say definitively that Nawabshah’s 50.2 degrees Celsius is a world April record because the World Meteorological Organisation does not conduct official reviews of such monthly temperature extremes.

However, Randy Cerveny, who serves as rapporteur for the agency’s committee on extreme records, said he would trust Burt’s statement. “He’s pretty thorough about those things,” Randy Cerveny said in an email to the Washington Post.

Further according to reports, the heat coupled with hours-long load-shedding caused dozens of people to faint in the city.

This is the second straight month in which Nawabshah has set a new monthly temperature record for Pakistan.

According to the PMD, the mercury in Karachi is expected to soar to 43 degrees Celsius today (Thursday).

The maximum temperature is forecast to hover in the 41-43 degrees Celsius range, with humidity levels touching 65-75 percent in morning and 25-35 percent in the evening, said the Met Office.

Published in Daily Times, May 3^rd2018.