India is entering an unusually early summer yet again with March expected to be one of the hottest on record, weather officials warn.
Meteorologists say that key wheat-growing regions in central and northern India could see temperatures rise up to 6C above average.
“March is going to be unusually hot this year. Both the maximum and minimum temperatures will remain above normal for most of the month,” a senior official at the India Meteorological Department, who asked not to be identified ahead of the official announcement, told the Reuters news agency.
The soaring temperatures, arriving weeks ahead of schedule, pose a risk to the country’s staple wheat crop, which is already under pressure after three consecutive years of poor yields.
“March is not going to be conducive for wheat, chickpea and rapeseed,” the official said. “Crops could experience heat stress.”
India is the second-largest wheat producer in the world, but consecutive years of extreme heat have seen yields slashed, forcing the country to ban exports of the grain in 2022 to protect domestic supplies, impacting global wheat markets.
Another poor harvest in 2025 could force the government to lower or remove the 40 per cent wheat import tax, making India more reliant on costly imports at a time of volatile global food prices.
Wheat is planted from October to December and needs cool temperatures to grow properly. When temperatures rise too early, wheat grains shrivel and ripen too soon, leading to lower yields.
The impact of weak crops is already being felt with wheat prices hitting record highs this month as domestic supplies dwindle.
The heatwave started unusually early this year, with the western belt of Mumbai, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka experiencing extreme temperatures in February – a month that is typically milder.
On 26 February, Mumbai recorded a temperature of 38.7C, about 5.9C above normal, triggering an early-season heatwave warning. Other coastal regions saw temperatures crossing 37C, reaching or exceeding the threshold for a heatwave declaration.
Heatwaves in India typically occur between March and June, but rising global temperatures are shifting this pattern, making extreme heatwaves arrive earlier and last longer.
Last year, the capital Delhi and neighbouring cities saw summer temperatures reach 50C, and the country reported 40,000 cases of heatstroke.
Weather experts say this year’s early heatwave is linked to an extremely dry winter season, which saw severe rainfall deficits in several states.
Gujarat and Goa didn’t receive any rain at all between January and February, marking a 100 per cent deficit. Maharashtra also saw almost no rain, with a 99 per cent shortfall. Karnataka received 0.9mm of rain instead of the usual 4.6mm, leaving an 80 per cent deficit, while Kerala saw 7.2mm compared to the usual 19.7mm, a 64 per cent deficit.
“It would not be wrong to say that this year the country has been witnessing one of the driest winter seasons,” Mahesh Palawat, vice president of Meteorology and Climate Change at Skymet Weather, said.
“An absence of weather systems has kept rainfall at bay, allowing temperatures to rise unchecked.”
A persistent anticyclone over the central Madhya Pradesh state has been pushing warm easterly winds across the West Coast, delaying the cooling sea breeze and driving up temperatures, Mr Palawat explained.
He added that the climate crisis played a role in altering seasonal cycles.
“It has been established that global warming has affected the winter rainfall in India. Summers have expanded and the winter season has downsized, with erratic rainfall patterns impacting temperature profiles across the country.”
Scientific evidence is increasingly linking India’s worsening heatwaves to the climate crisis.
The Climate Shift Index by Climate Central found that Mumbai’s February temperatures that triggered the heatwave were at least three times more likely due to human-caused climate change. Goa’s temperatures were at least five times more likely due to global warming.
“Anthropogenic climate change is escalating both meteorological and hydrological extremes worldwide, resulting in frequent record-breaking weather events,” said Dr Akshay Deoras, research scientist at the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the University of Reading.
“Warmer-than-usual temperatures are being observed across all continents, indicating a relatively uniform global warming pattern. Unless we limit global warming by rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, weather records will continue to break frequently.”
