New Delhi: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday predicted heatwave conditions in isolated pockets over Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Vidarbha, North Interior Karnataka, Coastal Andhra Pradesh & Yanam, Rayalaseema and Telangana over the next five days.
Apart from heatwaves, the IMD has also predicted thunderstorms and lightning over "Sub Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim during the next seven days and isolated hailstorm activity also very over the region on 5 April."
"Isolated light/moderate rainfall with thunderstorms and lightning very likely over Jharkhand during 6-9 and Bihar on 7 and 8 April", it added. The weather body has also listed out regions that experiencing above-normal temperatures including 43.7 Celsius in Nandyal (Rayalaseema), 43.5 Celsius in Bhubaneshwar (Odisha), 43.3 Celsius in Gulbarga (North Karnataka), 42 Celsius in Ramagundam (Telangana) and others.
IMD has also predicted rainfall in the northeast for the next seven days. "Fairly widespread to widespread light/moderate rainfall/snowfall with isolated thunderstorms and lightning very likely over Arunachal Pradesh; scattered to fairly widespread light to moderate rainfall with isolated thunderstorms, lightning and gusty winds (40-50 kmph) over Assam & Meghalaya and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura during next seven days", it said.
It further added that "isolated heavy rainfall/snowfall very likely over Arunachal Pradesh during 6-9 April with the possibility of very heavy rainfall on 6 April and isolated heavy rainfall over Assam & Meghalaya on 6 April."
Earlier, Union Minister of Earth Sciences, Kiren Rijiju had said that there are Lok Sabha elections in the next few days and precautions have been taken for the heatwave. “We had a two-day meeting with state governments regarding preparations and issued an advisory for the same," he said.
While talking about the prevailing heatwave conditions, Rijiju had said, “According to our projections, a huge region of the country is going to be affected with heatwave including states like West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka."
