It’s 54.89 deg..... no, 52.3 deg... errr...
   Date :01-Jun-2024


54.89 deg 
 
 
 
 
Staff Reporter
 
 
NAGPUR was trending like a hot cake on the social media on Friday as the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) showed day temperature at a whopping 54.89 degrees Celsius. This was close on the heels of Delhi’s record-breaking temperature of 52.3 degrees registered a couple of days ago. As the Nagpur heat raised ‘viral temperature’ across the country with top officials and ministers, too, sharing screenshots, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) stepped in to inform that it was a technical glitch. And, the city continued to simmer at the ‘routine’ 45 degrees! The city earned its place under the hot sun when the AWS situated in the premises of Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) near Sitabuldi reported the maximum day temperature 54.9 degrees Celsius, which could have been the highest-ever recorded in the history of the country. The second one at Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport also reported the maximum temperature at 53.2 degrees Celsius. It led to a social media frenzy, adding to the ‘nautapa’ blisters in the city before the IMD poured water on the trend.
 
For the record, the second capital of Maharashtra, which is reeling under severe heat for last many days, had recorded the highest maximum temperature during summer at around 48.0 degrees Celsius, This year, the highest temperature was 45.6 degrees Celsius. The IMD issued a clarification that the temperature sensor at Nagpur City AWS was currently malfunctioning, and RMC Nagpur was working to fix it. It stated that the electronic sensors can fail in extreme weather conditions. “Automatic systems may report erroneous reading due to various reasons, such as site conditions, damage of sensors or its protection shields, etc. However, IMD staff are trained to detect such erroneous readings in comparison with many other meteorological parameters,” IMD Nagpur said.
 
The IMD further stated that the maximum temperature read on May 30 by the sensor in the nearby functioning AWS was 44.0 degrees Celsius. “Outlier data are also filtered in the pre-processing stage. The report of 56 degrees Celsius on May 30, 2024, is not correct and not declared officially. The nearby functioning AWS is at CICR, Nagpur and the Maximum temperature read on May 30, 2024, by the sensor is 44.0 degrees Celsius,” it mentioned. Apart from three AWS in Nagpur, there is one departmental weather station which is situated in RMC building which provides the daily weather data. Other regions like Gondia (2), Chandrapur (2), Akola (1), Yavatmal (2), Bhandara (1) Ramtek (1) and Wardha (1) also have AWS to monitor temperature.
 
 
 
How Automatic Weather Station works
‘THE Hitavada’ explored the reasons behind this steep jump in temperature in Nagpur which meteorologists claimed was a technical glitch. “There is a microprocessor in Automatic Weather Station exactly like a computer. There is one data logger too. When the microprocessor gets the data, the logger starts capturing it with the help of sensors and the microprocessor processes the data. Then with the help of a SIM card, the data is transmitted to us. This is completely an automatic process,” explained a senior meteorologist.
 
“There is a sensor named ‘thermistor’ which measures the thermal temperature. If heat in the atmosphere increases, the voltage of the ‘thermistor’ also changes and it interpolates the voltage into temperature. We calibrate it as per the average temperature in the city where the AWS is situated. Sometime if the temperature goes up, the data logger starts malfunctioning. At that time, the temperature display is abnormally high. There are chances that the data logger or the thermistor are malfunctioning due to which the temperature crossed 50 degrees Celsius in the city,” said the meteorologist.