At 39.5°C, city country’s hottest Tuesday 3rd Hottest & 3rd Coldest March Day In 10 Years

Mumbai: Citizens experienced unbearable heat on Tuesday as Mumbai emerged as the hottest city in the country when it recorded a maximum temperature of city 39.5°C. It also recorded the third lowest March temperature as well as third highest March temperature in a decade on Tuesday. 

    In Santa Cruz, the minimum temperature was 15.6°C—more than four degrees below normal—while the maximum was 39.5°C—almost seven degrees above normal. Colaba, too, was hot at 37.5°C—more than six degrees above normal. 
    The closest was Surat, which recorded 38.6°C and Rajkot (38.3°C). Delhi recorded 30.2°C, Kolkata 33.1°C and Hyderabad 34.4°C on Tuesday. 
    "There was a long spell of low humidity levels from Monday evening till Tuesday morning," said N Y Apte, deputy director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai. Generally, the humidity levels keep fluctuating from low to high in a matter of hours. But according to the weather department, the humidity remained consistently low (in the range of 10-20%) between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. 
    It is the low humidity levels that the weather department blames for the rise in temperature. The met department has said the weather is likely to remain more or less the same over the next two days. "The maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to be near 39°C and 17°C respectively," said the weather forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.