VISAKHAPATNAM: It is still April and the mercury levels have touched almost 46 degrees Celsius in Krishna district. The data available in the website of the Andhra Pradesh State Development Planning Society suggested that the maximum day temperatures in many mandals of the district were above 45 degrees on Sunday.
Kanchikacherla mandal headquarters recorded 45.7 degrees Celsius, followed by Tiruvuru (45.6 degrees), Musunuru (45.4 degrees), Khamampadu (45.3 degrees) and G Konduru (45.1 degrees).
Kankipadu recorded maximum temperature of 43.6 degrees Celsius while the same for Gannavaram was 43.6 degrees Celsius.
Not only in Krishna, the temperatures in other districts too recorded a similar trend. The mercury levels at many places in Guntur, Vizianagaram and Kadapa districts hovered above 44 degrees Celsius. However, Visakhapatnam temperatures remained below 40 degrees as the weather station at Vizag airport registered 36 degrees.
Apart from coastal Andhra Pradesh, heat wave conditions continued unabated in Rayalaseema too, with most of the places recording the day temperature between 40 and 44 degrees Celsius. According to the APSDPS daily weather report, 104 mandals of the total 670 in the state experienced heat wave conditions, while another 107 mandals faced very hot weather conditions in the last 24 hours. “As many as 143 mandals are likely to face heat wave conditions and 135 mandals will have very hot weather conditions in the next 24 hours,” the report read.
Attributing the rise in temperature to westerlies, the weathermen, however, said that the heat wave conditions are likely to continue for another 24 hours over Coastal AP and Rayalaseema.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted a hotter than usual summer in March, even before temperatures began to rise. But, it had said that heat wave was likely to dissipate by April 20.
Reiterating the same, the weathermen on Sunday said an upper air cyclonic circulation over Jharkhand and its neighbourhood to south Tamil Nadu across interior Odisha and coastal Andhra Pradesh extends up to 0.9 km above the mean sea level. “Under the influence of this weather system, the maximum temperatures over coastal Andhra Pradesh are likely to drop in the next three days,” said the duty officer at the Cyclonic Warning Centre (CWC), Vizag.