DELHI BAKES – 52.9°?

IMD checking sensors at monitoring station; if it was indeed 52.9, then it is just few degrees shy of the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth

- GAURAV VIVEK

If one were to take at face value the temperature reading at a monitoring station in Delhi's Mungeshpur, India has reported its highest-ever temperature at 52.9 degree Celsius. With TV channels and news portals lapping up the claim, the weather department chief said they were checking whether the sensors gave the correct reading before asserting that it was indeed the hottest day ever in the country. Both Mungeshpur weather station at Najafgarh had recorded 49.9 degrees Celsius on Tuesday and the Delhi's Safdarjung observatory, the city's primary weather station, recorded on Wednesday a maximum temperature of 46.8 degrees Celsius -- the highest in 79 years, according to official data. If Delhi was indeed sizzling at 52.9, then it is just a few degrees shy of the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth. That is, 56.7 degrees Celsius at the Greenland Ranch in California's Death Valley; the ranch is now aptly called the Furnace Creek Ranch. Incidentally, the other areas that have reported extremely high temperatures are both in Rajasthan - one of them being Phalodi with 51 degree Celsius; earlier, this was the country's highestever temperature.