Sweltering heat, flash floods, 'disappearing' spring season — India's weather story so far in 2024

Extreme weather events in 2024 prompt questions about climate change, with record-breaking temperatures and natural disasters across India.

Sweltering heatwave in north India that have caused scores of deaths, floods and landslides in the northeast that have affected lakhs of people, a spring season that suggests it could soon "disappear" from the calendar — extreme weather events in the first five months of 2024 have got everyone questioning: where is all this headed?

Despite having made predictions to this effect, climate scientists acknowledge that the temperatures this summer, including the outlier 52.9° Celsius in Delhi, are "alarming, though not surprising".

"This could be the worst summer in the last 120 years, at least for north India. Never have temperatures gone so high — more than 45-47° Celsius — for such a vast region, which is also densely populated. This is a record in itself," Vimal Mishra, Vikram Sarabhai Chair Professor, Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, told PTI.

The temperatures, "similar to those in Africa's Sahara desert," are "far beyond expectations" by at least three or four degrees, according to Mr. Mishra.

Earth system scientist Raghu Murtugudde, professor at IIT-Bombay, told PTI this was due to the combined effect of multiple phenomena — climate change, El Nino and the water vapour released by Tonga's Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption in January 2022.

El Nino causes a warming of the sea surface temperatures, affecting the world's weather.

"The Middle East is getting hotter very fast because the desert traps the heat during global warming — warmer atmosphere is more humid and water vapour is a greenhouse gas," Mr. Murtugudde said.