Islamabad: Nawabshah, a city of 1.1 million people in the southern part of Pakistan, recorded a temperature of 50.2 Celsius. Meteorologists say it is the highest temperature ever reliably recorded, anywhere in the world, in April.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) keeps global temperature records, but not by month, which means Nawabshah cannot be officially confirmed as the hottest April day. But experts on extreme temperatures say it probably is. Christopher C Burt, the author of ‘Extreme Weather: A Guide and Record Book’ and a contributor to Weather Underground, said 50.2 degrees Celsius appeared to be the hottest reliably measured April temperature “in modern records for any location on Earth.”
Only one reading might challenge it: the 51 degrees Celsius temperature that was recorded in Santa Rosa, Mexico, in April 2011. But Burt said the measurement could be “questionable because the site was a regional observation site and not of first order.” A large area of high pressure over the Indian Ocean, known as a heat dome, is to blame for this situation.
Intense, life-threatening heatwaves have become more frequent as the climate has warmed, and Asia has been especially hard-hit. And temperatures will only increase as spring turns to summer. During a heatwave in April 2017, Pakistan set a record that lasted only until this Monday. One in June 2015 killed more than 1,000 people in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
Worldwide, 17 of the 18 warmest years on record have occurred since the year 2001, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, and the past four are the four warmest. The highest temperature recognised by the WMO at any time of year is 56.7 degrees Celsius, recorded in Death Valley in 1913, but the validity of that measurement has been questioned.
Some prominent meteorologists, including Burt, believe that the highest reliably recorded temperature is 54 degrees Celsius, reached in Death Valley in 2013 and Kuwait in 2016.
