Heat wave to severe heat wave conditions are being reported from parts of North-West India and East India and forecasts indicated that even more heating may occur during the rest of this week.
International forecasters suspected that East India, adjoining Central India and northern half of the East Coast, may be the areas recording maximum heat during the period.
An India Met Department update said that heat wave conditions were reported from Himachal Pradesh and Punjab in the North-West and Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal during the 24 hours ending this morning.
Similar conditions prevailed also in isolated places over Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Chhattisgarh.
But thundershowers prevented heat from building up in Jammu, rest of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Rajasthan.
Thundershowers also lashed parts of Kerala and Telangana and many places in the North-East of the country in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
Towards east
India Met too agreed with international forecasts that heat wave conditions will stay pronounced to the East of the country and adjoining Central India during the next few days.
The North-West would is expected to remain isolated from top heat due to the arrival of a western disturbance, which may kick up thunderstorms/dust storms in the region.
In fact, the Met is predicting a fall in maximum temperatures over North-West India by 2- to 4 deg Celsius due to cloud cover, leading to abatement of heat wave conditions.
This morning, satellite pictures showed convective (rain-driving) clouds over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Punjab in the North-West India as well as over the North-Eastern States.
Reservoir level
According to the Central Water Commission, the 91 major reservoirs in the country have a total live capacity of 157.80 billion cubic metres (BCM) at full reservoir level.
Current live storage in these reservoirs as on April 7 was 37.92 BCM as against 55.34 BCM on the same day a year ago (April 7, 2015) and 49.44 BCM of normal (average of the last 10 years) storage.
The same storage position as a percentage of full reservoir level was observed in the corresponding period of 2009 when the overall monsoon deficiency was 23 per cent of the long-period average.
Current year’s storage is 69 per cent of the last year’s storage and 77 per cent of the normal storage.