Rajasthan's Churu sizzles at 50 degrees Celsius, tops list of 15 hottest cities in world

NEW DELHI: With heatwave conditions intensifying in the country, Rajasthan's Churu recorded the country’s highest temperature of 50 degrees Celsius on Tuesday. Churu, which is also known as the gateway to the Thar desert, was also the hottest place on earth in the past 24 hours at 50°Celsius. 

Out of the 15 hottest cities of the world, Churu was followed by Pakistan’s Jacobabad (50 degrees Celsius) as the second hottest place on Earth on Tuesday.

Out of the 15 hottest cities in the world in the last 24 hours, 10 were in India with the remaining in neighbouring Pakistan, according to weather monitoring website El Dorado.

At 47.6°C, Delhi's Palam recorded the decade's maximum May Day temperature on Tuesday - six units above average for this time of the year.

Bikaner, Ganganagar and Pilani were the three other cities from Rajasthan which figured on the list. Two cities were from Uttar Pradesh and two from Maharashtra.

UP’s Banda and Hisar in Haryana also recorded extreme temperatures of 48 degrees Celsius on Tuesday. Globally, the 20 warmest years recorded globally were in the last 22 years, and experts believe that 2020 could be another year of record heat.

While January 2020 was the hottest January month on record, February, March and April of 2020 were all among the top two warmest corresponding months ever recorded.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had said earlier that heatwave conditions will peak due to the prevailing dry winds over northwest India.

Kuldeep Srivastava, Head of IMD's Regional Weather Forecasting Centre, said: "Churu on Tuesday had the highest maximum temperature at 50-degree Celsius. 

In the last 10 years, this is the second time the maximum temperature has surpassed this mark. Earlier on May 18, 2010, a temperature of 50.2-degree Celsius was recorded."

The hot weather conditions will also prevail in isolated pockets over Punjab, Chhattisgarh, interior Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, interior Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand for the next two to three days.