India Meteorological Department report on Changing Temperature Trends in India

Why in the news?

According to Monthly Climate Summary reports published by India Meteorological Department for April 2026, an Interesting weather pattern has been observed in India.

Highlights of the Report

• Higher Night heating -  Minimum temperatures (night time temperatures) are rising faster than Maximum Temperatures (daytime temperatures)
• Country wide, daytime maximum were usually normal, around 0.11 Degree C this is above usual average. Night temperature jumped by 0.5 C above normal.

Regional Variation –

• Western India & Central Indian sections – In the large part of these region day time maximum temperature were close to or even below normal levels.
• Punjab & Delhi Sections – In Panjab it was observed that daytime temperatures a degree below normal, but its night temperature were 2.4 0C hotter than the state average.
• Delhi observed day temperature below normal but night temperatures were 2.2 0C hotter than usual.
• Higher Deviations – Out of 422 weather stations, Chaparmukh (Assam) & Phulbani (Odisha) saw the highest rise in night temperatures.
• Impact – Due to warmer night the human body & Environment gets little time to recover from the daytime heat.

Meaning of normal Temperature

• Climate baseline – Meteorologists use a long –term average called the Normal baseline to decide if a day is hotter or cooler.

• At present both Indian Meteorological Department & World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are using average temperature records of past 30 years between 1991 to 2020.
• If the station reports below normal temperature for April 2026, it simply means it was cooler than the specific 30 year average for April, even if the absolute heat was still high.

For reference The Hindu | IAS Parliament | Indian meteorological department