Mumbai temp touches 40°C in BMC weather stations

 

Mumbai: The heat is on, and how! According to figures available with the BMC, temperature in parts of Mumbai has hit 40°Celsius. The BMC runs Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at 35 locations across the city, some of which have been consistently recording temperatures close to 40 degrees this summer.
    Weather data is usually supplied by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which maintains weather stations only at Colaba and Santa Cruz—two of the coolest areas in the city.
    While temperatures at several AWS fluctuated between 35 and 38°C in March and April, Chincholi Bunder in Malad recorded a maximum temperature of 40.1°C on April 11.
    The AWS at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Andheri, Borivli and Dadar almost touched 40 on certain days. The lowest temperatures, meanwhile, were consistently between 20 and 25°C.
    Blame it on infrastructure projects, rapid concretisation or lack of greenery, but different pockets in the city recorded varying temperatures
on various days.
Why you are feeling so uncomfortable
    It’s not just the heat that’s doing Mumbai in. The discomfort index of the city in the first half of May has almost pushed it to the brink of a heatstroke. According to the IMD, the index is a combination of maximum temperature and humidity and reflects how hot or humid the weather feels to people. P 5 Rapid construction, depleting green cover make city hotter
    Although the difference in the maximum temperatures was not always markedly different, the variations showed hinted at the difference of quality in locations. The IMD had earlier said that between 1901 and 2007, Mumbai had registered a mean temperature rise of 1.62 degrees C.
    “Areas which have a large number of concrete buildings radiate more heat and are obviously warmer than those that boast of greenery,’’ says Kapil Gupta of the department of civil engineering at IIT. “Dadar, for instance, has a lot of traffic and smoke, which makes the region hotter than most others,’’ he adds.
    Experts point out that the maximum temperature of the day is usually recorded between 1 and 3 pm. “This is because the sun reaches the highest point of the horizon around then and relative humidity is also at its peak. After 3 pm, cooling begins,’’ says Gupta.
    Officials from the BMC attribute the high temperatures to heavy congestion in certain areas. “Areas like Chembur, Chincholi Bunder and Dadar are very congested. Because of the heavy vehicular movement, carbon dioxide emission levels are also very high,’’ explains Mahesh Narvekar, chief officer of BMC’s disaster management cell.
    However, even as the AWS placed on top of fire stations continue to record temperatures every 15 minutes, IMD officials are hard-pressed to validate their authenticity. “The BMC’s figures should not be considered absolute,’’ says R V Sharma, IMD’s deputy director general of meteorology. “They are not as meticulously planned as IMD stations so there might be slight errors in calculation.’’ Sharma goes on to explain that if AWS are placed on top of buildings, they might catch the extra heat of the roof or, in some cases, not catch heat because of the shade from trees. “But having said that, the AWS are definitely helpful in gauging the general intensity of temperature across the city,’’ he says.