Temperature in Pakistan may soar to 50C this week: report

WASHIGTON: Remarkable heat across South Asia may challenge global temperature records this week, US media reported.

Temperatures in central and southern Pakistan rose to 47.7 degree Celsius last weekend and are forecast to climb through Wednesday, possibly nearing the global April record of 50 degrees Celsius.

Nawabshah, a city in southern Pakistan, reached that scorching mark back in April 2018 and could do it again this week. The Pakistan Meteorological Department predicted heat wave conditions from April 26 to 30, advising the public to take precautionary measures.

A list of monthly global temperature extremes maintained by weather historian Maximiliano Herrera confirms Nawabshah’s temperature from April 2018 as the record for April, at least across all of Asia. An April reading of 62.2 degree Celsius in Santa Rosa, Mexico, during 2001 may not be reliable.

A sprawling dome of high pressure, like a heavy lid trapping heat in a pot, is causing the wave of excessive warmth, stretching from the Middle East into South Asia. This area has been home to some of the planet’s most unusually warm temperatures during April. Such conditions are expected in a warming world, where heat extremes are greatly outpacing cool ones.

Heat will build across the Middle East and South Asia through the week, with Wednesday and Thursday looking like the hottest days for Pakistan. One of the world’s most reliable weather models, called ECMWF, is predicting maximum temperatures around 48 degrees C on Wednesday and Thursday in central Pakistan.

The same model slightly underestimated high temperatures last weekend by about 2 to 3 degrees. Accounting for this, it’s still possible that temperatures in Pakistan reach the low 48 C. Temperatures higher than 43.3 degrees C are forecast in 21 countries this week: Pakistan, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, India, Iraq, Qatar, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, South Sudan, Bahrain, Mali, Senegal, Chad, Ethiopia, Niger, Eritrea, Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

Late in the week, the unusually hot air mass will move eastward toward China, as a new heat wave causes stifling heat across Central Asia, where temperatures in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are forecast to soar past 37 degrees C.

Temperatures have been more than 4 degrees above average in Pakistan so far this April, even before the arrival of this week’s potentially record-breaking heat. Iraq has been nearly 3 degrees above average and had its highest April temperature on record, 46 degrees C.

Record heat has also affected the United Arab Emirates, where it reached 46 degrees C, Iran and Turkmenistan — the most unusually warm country on the planet during April, where it’s been over 7 degrees above average.

A 45 degree C temperature reading in Niger was also reported as a national record. During April so far, 63 percent of the planet has experienced above-average temperatures, while 37 percent has had below-average temperatures. Warmer-than-average conditions have affected around 116 countries; 39 have been cooler than average.

After a record-breaking warm year for the planet in 2024, due in part to a strong El Niño, a La Niña event early this year did little to cool things down, contrary to past trends.

The January to March period was the second-warmest on record for the globe. Only 2024 was warmer during that time frame.

With the summer months quickly approaching for the Northern Hemisphere, unusual and dangerously hot weather conditions are starting to build — conditions aligned with the warm state of the climate.