Delhi’s record 52.9C temperature reading was wrong by 3 degrees, India says

NEW DELHI — A record temperature registered this week for the capital New Delhi of 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.22 degrees Fahrenheit) was too high by three degrees Celsius, the Indian government said on Saturday (June 1), blaming a weather sensor error.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of Delhi, “and found a three degrees Celsius sensor error”, Earth Sciences Minister Kiren Rijiju said.

“Corrective measures are now in place,” the minister said, sharing the conclusion of a draft report about the all-time high reading on social media platform X. He did not give a corrected figure for Wednesday’s temperature.

The IMD said in a statement that the maximum temperature reported by the Mungeshpur weather station “is not correct due to malfunctioning of the sensor”.

However the city’s record for heat still appears to have been broken.

Two weather stations in the capital reported temperatures of 49 degrees Celsius and 49.1 degrees Celsius for Wednesday. The IMD said these two stations had been checked and it did not report any sensor errors.

The highest temperature previously recorded in New Delhi was 48.4 degrees Celsius in May 1998, the draft IMD report said.

Severe heat has been scorching parts of India for days. At least 33 people, including election officials on duty, died of suspected heatstroke in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the north, and Odisha in the east on Friday.

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