7 ms·

India's hottest district shuts at 10 am as mercury breaches 48 C mark

119 points by rustoo 5mo ago

SilverElfin 5mo ago
They hit 119 degrees in freedom units, for those in the US
- hartator 5mo ago
  I saw 118 in Austin. 119 is hot.
  - big_youth 5mo ago
    Record temp in austin is 112, and that was during that 2011 heat wave.
    - seattle_spring 5mo ago
      I still think it's crazy that the heat wave in Portland, OR (116 deg in 2021) had higher temps than places like Austin, Dallas, Miami, etc have ever had in recorded history. An area of BC recorded over 121.
      - buildbot 5mo ago
        Maple Valley in Washington was allegedly 118 too - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_hea... Super fun considering relatively few homes in western Washington have AC…
        FireBeyond 5mo ago
        I had just moved into the home we bought a week before that event, about 30 miles south of Maple Valley. The AC was old (original unit from when the home was built in the early 1980s) and we knew it had to be replaced. But with everything (new appliances, etc.) we decided "we'll take care of that before next summer". And then four days of 105+ temperature, and of course, the AC died forever[1] a couple of hours in. We had a portable AC, but an elderly dog with a double coat, and my partner and our dog and I ended up hunkering down in the living room with the portable AC running 24/7 (took the edge off, but still got to mid 80s inside) and us periodically running towels under water, putting them in the freezer and using them as a "blanket" for the dog. We thought about hotels, but anything in our town was booked. That was not a fun time. [1] Miraculously we managed to find an AC tech who would come out to look at it. "It's dead." I don't know what he did then, but he did something else (maybe removed a cutout valve?) and said "Here, this will keep it working but might only be for a couple of hours or a couple of days and is absolutely not warrantied or guaranteed or anything". It did keep working for about four more hours before giving up completely.
AlfieJones 5mo ago
In the UK we don’t get temperatures like this, but it doesn’t take much heat before parts of the country start feeling completely unprepared for it
- TMWNN 5mo ago
  Because air conditioning in homes is so rare in Europe and so widespread in the US, the gap between the number of Europeans and (North) Americans that die each year from heat waves is already larger than the total number of Americans that die from guns. <https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...>
  - z3dd 5mo ago
    > the number of Europeans and (North) Americans that die each year from heat waves is already larger than the total number of Americans that die from guns. This doesn't mean much on its own. People have to die from something eventually, if someone is living a longer life due to not dying for other reasons, they get older and are more susceptible to heat.
    - raffraffraff 5mo ago
      On a long enough timeline, a piano could fall on your head
  - Svip 5mo ago
    Except that source article doesn't make that claim, only number of gun deaths. The best source[1] I could find on heatwave related deaths on short notice has the following summary: > Asia observed the highest heatwave-related mortality, accounting for 47.97% (85,611 deaths) of the global excess death, followed by Europe (37.23%, 66,443 deaths), the Americas (13.15%, 23,467deaths), Africa (1.61%, 2,881 deaths), and Oceania (0.05%, 83 deaths). That of course muddles the picture by combining both American continents, though further down it quotes 9,666 for "Northern America" in table 1; though the Europe number also includes all of Russia. Those numbers are from 2023. Additionally, Europe has more than twice the population of North America. Without doing the maths, the gap claim sound about right; however, that doesn't necessarily mean it's due to a lack of air conditioning in Europe. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666675825003133 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266667582...
msy 5mo ago
I wonder what the wet bulb temperature is, it feels like the day when we have our first true mass casualty event (as opposed to the longer, slower crisies caused by say european heatwaves in the last decade) caused by the climate crisis is getting close.
- kulahan 5mo ago
  We’re looking at an unprecedented El Niño this year - the event may be closer than we think.
- recursivecaveat 5mo ago
  I plugged in the "now" (11am there) numbers for Banda from a weather site (since the humidity is higher than in the afternoon) of 37C, 52% RH, 1001 MB of pressure into the US gov's calculator: https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_rh https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_rh It says 28C for wet bulb. According to wikipedia 35C is where even young and healthy people die, but 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 from a heat wave that topped out at 28C as well.
  - petesergeant 5mo ago
    > but 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 People die in Thailand from the cold at 10°C. There's a strong physiological acclimatization factor, plus the way dwellings are set up to handle the heat. Which is to say wet bulb temperatures of 28°C in Europe are incomparable in terms of fatality rates to the same temperatures in central India -- perhaps that was your point.
- senectus1 5mo ago
  such an underrated concern.
aaron695 5mo ago
[dead]
hendler 5mo ago
There's some interesting, sad, but hopeful science fiction about where this is headed. Ministry for the Future: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-fo... Excerpt here: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-ministry-for-the-future-book-excerpt/ https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-ministry-for-the-futur...
- xyzsparetimexyz 5mo ago
  The only good bit of the book is that first chapter
psb5 5mo ago
"Pouring water over transformers". Does this actually do anything?
- pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
  Depending on the humidity, yes. The evaporation will cool them down, but if it gets humid enough it stops
  - fulafel 5mo ago
    > if it gets humid enough it stops It won't stop if it's ventilated with outdoor ambient air: 40C air can hold 51 g of water per m3 of air. 60C air can hold 130 g of water per m3 of air [1]. The curve is exponential. So, it works as long as the transformer is hotter than ambient air, even at the most humidest (100% RH). The transformer's heat will drop the relative humidity of the air near its surface, and the heated air can absorb more water again. If the humidity is below 100% RH, what changes is that the evaporating water could cool it to below ambient air temperature, same effect as in swamp coolers. [1] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/maximum-moisture-content-air-d_1403.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/maximum-moisture-content-...
    - pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
      Ah interesting!! I knew there was some relevant interaction with temperature, but was too lazy to look it up. Thanks for clarifying it!
- raverbashing 5mo ago
  Yes I mean besides the risk of arcing and getting people shocked yes it should help cooling them down (through evaporative cooling)
kranner 5mo ago
That's the temperature at the weather station in shade. The air temperature is higher in the sun in busy marketplaces from high surface temperature of tarred roads and the thermal island effect of poor Indian urban design. Also on the top floors of buildings it tends to be really bad (roofs are mostly uninsulated).
- cyanydeez 5mo ago
  Today, in May. I'm pretty sure its going to get much worse. How so do you think we'll find out why zuckerberg thinks he can hide away on an island when the civilization he's decided to manipulate can't sustain.
  - kranner 5mo ago
    The weather in North India has been very weird this year. Normally it's pleasant in March and starts warming up in April all the way to end June. This year it got June-hot in April but then cooled down again in early May. From running ACs in April to even turning ceiling fans off for a few days in May is unheard of.
    - cyanydeez 5mo ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/wapo/2WBTIZKLAFGNXCCHGPI6EC7GVI.gif&w=1440&impolicy=high_res https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://...
    - port11 5mo ago
      The weather is weird everywhere. Portugal now gets weird semi-tropical storms. Belgium had nonsensical heat earlier this year and then hail rains, now we’re up for another heat wave in May. We’ve been warned about climate change, but I’m glad we waited so long to act, it’s definitely been worth it -.-
fulafel 5mo ago
Humanity needs to be in a serious hurry to ramp down fossil fuel use and production to curb the megadeaths. Eg the US has been going in the opposite direction for a while, net exporter of oil since 2021.
- rapsey 5mo ago
  If the green movement had any sense they would be promoting nuclear and lobbying to get plants built asap. Instead most of the green movement is against nuclear and only make things worse, i.e. germany now using huge amounts of coal.
  - psb5 5mo ago
    Well the article is saying transformers are overheating. That means the entire distribution network is probably not rated for such high tempratures and god knows how that is going to be solved even if you change the power plant.
    - rapsey 5mo ago
      The thread is about the world moving off fossil fuels.
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    Because nuclear energy is only popular in certain circles. No, nuclear waste is not a solved issue. Given Russia was very happily attacking Zaporizhzhia they aren't as safe as you might want to believe. Especially Germany has issues with it due to having stored tons of nuclear waste in old salt mines in barrels that start to leak. Fuck nuclear power.
    - gambiting 5mo ago
      >>Especially Germany has issues with it due to having stored tons of nuclear waste in old salt mines in barrels that start to leak. Isn't highly radioactive waste vitrified(turned into glass)? How is it leaking, exactly? And isn't the entire point of storing it inside salt that it's self sealing - even if there is a leak it won't go anywhere.
nomilk 5mo ago
Wonder how much the removal of trees and bitumening/concreting of surface areas contributes to radiative heating from the sun which then increases the temp of surrounding air, especially on still days.
- bob1029 5mo ago
  The Houston metroplex might be one of the best domestic examples of the urban heat island effect. They've got their own entire website about it. If you overlay the daily temperature curve of 77002 with any zip outside the beltway, the difference is incredible. The increased HVAC demand further compounds everything. Downtown Houston is truly hell during the hottest summer months. It can be 4am and your ac condenser will still be throwing the high pressure cutout switch. https://www.h3at.org/ https://www.h3at.org/
  - metalman 5mo ago
    The sattelite feed I use has an infrared channel, and Houston's ring and web road structure stands out from geocyncronous orbit, whereas Mexico city is invisible, hot but not like the heat island effect of what must be one of the greatest amounts of concrete on the planet. https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/goes/ https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/goes/
- graemep 5mo ago
  [dead]
- alphabeta3r56 5mo ago
  In this specific case, the city is essentially bordering a desert.
nirui 5mo ago
Extended read: A Super El Niño Is Increasingly Likely, And It Could Be Record Strong (https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2026-05-07-super-el-nino-forecast-may2026 https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2026-05-07-super-el-ni...) If true, this summer and maybe winter maybe brutal.
leosanchez 5mo ago
Currently living in Southern India. The heat is unbearable.
pickleglitch 5mo ago
I expect at some point in my lifetime there will be places near the equator that will be rendered uninhabitable by climate change. There will be a climate refugee crisis. The future is looking bleak.
OptionOfT 5mo ago
As someone who lives in Phoenix, the 48C mark doesn't matter unless we know the humidity... 115C with 10% humidity (71.66F wet bulb) here is hot, but as long as you have water, you're better off here than in Florida with 85F at 90% humidity (87.46F wet bulb).

119 points by rustoo 5mo ago

SilverElfin 5mo ago

They hit 119 degrees in freedom units, for those in the US

hartator 5mo ago
I saw 118 in Austin. 119 is hot.
- big_youth 5mo ago
  Record temp in austin is 112, and that was during that 2011 heat wave.
  - seattle_spring 5mo ago
    I still think it's crazy that the heat wave in Portland, OR (116 deg in 2021) had higher temps than places like Austin, Dallas, Miami, etc have ever had in recorded history. An area of BC recorded over 121.
    - buildbot 5mo ago
      Maple Valley in Washington was allegedly 118 too - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_hea... Super fun considering relatively few homes in western Washington have AC…
      - FireBeyond 5mo ago
        I had just moved into the home we bought a week before that event, about 30 miles south of Maple Valley. The AC was old (original unit from when the home was built in the early 1980s) and we knew it had to be replaced. But with everything (new appliances, etc.) we decided "we'll take care of that before next summer". And then four days of 105+ temperature, and of course, the AC died forever[1] a couple of hours in. We had a portable AC, but an elderly dog with a double coat, and my partner and our dog and I ended up hunkering down in the living room with the portable AC running 24/7 (took the edge off, but still got to mid 80s inside) and us periodically running towels under water, putting them in the freezer and using them as a "blanket" for the dog. We thought about hotels, but anything in our town was booked. That was not a fun time. [1] Miraculously we managed to find an AC tech who would come out to look at it. "It's dead." I don't know what he did then, but he did something else (maybe removed a cutout valve?) and said "Here, this will keep it working but might only be for a couple of hours or a couple of days and is absolutely not warrantied or guaranteed or anything". It did keep working for about four more hours before giving up completely.

AlfieJones 5mo ago

In the UK we don’t get temperatures like this, but it doesn’t take much heat before parts of the country start feeling completely unprepared for it

TMWNN 5mo ago
Because air conditioning in homes is so rare in Europe and so widespread in the US, the gap between the number of Europeans and (North) Americans that die each year from heat waves is already larger than the total number of Americans that die from guns. <https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...>
- z3dd 5mo ago
  > the number of Europeans and (North) Americans that die each year from heat waves is already larger than the total number of Americans that die from guns. This doesn't mean much on its own. People have to die from something eventually, if someone is living a longer life due to not dying for other reasons, they get older and are more susceptible to heat.
  - raffraffraff 5mo ago
    On a long enough timeline, a piano could fall on your head
- Svip 5mo ago
  Except that source article doesn't make that claim, only number of gun deaths. The best source[1] I could find on heatwave related deaths on short notice has the following summary: > Asia observed the highest heatwave-related mortality, accounting for 47.97% (85,611 deaths) of the global excess death, followed by Europe (37.23%, 66,443 deaths), the Americas (13.15%, 23,467deaths), Africa (1.61%, 2,881 deaths), and Oceania (0.05%, 83 deaths). That of course muddles the picture by combining both American continents, though further down it quotes 9,666 for "Northern America" in table 1; though the Europe number also includes all of Russia. Those numbers are from 2023. Additionally, Europe has more than twice the population of North America. Without doing the maths, the gap claim sound about right; however, that doesn't necessarily mean it's due to a lack of air conditioning in Europe. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666675825003133 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266667582...

msy 5mo ago

I wonder what the wet bulb temperature is, it feels like the day when we have our first true mass casualty event (as opposed to the longer, slower crisies caused by say european heatwaves in the last decade) caused by the climate crisis is getting close.

kulahan 5mo ago
We’re looking at an unprecedented El Niño this year - the event may be closer than we think.
recursivecaveat 5mo ago
I plugged in the "now" (11am there) numbers for Banda from a weather site (since the humidity is higher than in the afternoon) of 37C, 52% RH, 1001 MB of pressure into the US gov's calculator: https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_rh https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_rh It says 28C for wet bulb. According to wikipedia 35C is where even young and healthy people die, but 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 from a heat wave that topped out at 28C as well.
- petesergeant 5mo ago
  > but 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 People die in Thailand from the cold at 10°C. There's a strong physiological acclimatization factor, plus the way dwellings are set up to handle the heat. Which is to say wet bulb temperatures of 28°C in Europe are incomparable in terms of fatality rates to the same temperatures in central India -- perhaps that was your point.
senectus1 5mo ago
such an underrated concern.

aaron695 5mo ago

[dead]

hendler 5mo ago

There's some interesting, sad, but hopeful science fiction about where this is headed. Ministry for the Future: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-fo... Excerpt here: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-ministry-for-the-future-book-excerpt/ https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-ministry-for-the-futur...

xyzsparetimexyz 5mo ago
The only good bit of the book is that first chapter

psb5 5mo ago

"Pouring water over transformers". Does this actually do anything?

pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
Depending on the humidity, yes. The evaporation will cool them down, but if it gets humid enough it stops
- fulafel 5mo ago
  > if it gets humid enough it stops It won't stop if it's ventilated with outdoor ambient air: 40C air can hold 51 g of water per m3 of air. 60C air can hold 130 g of water per m3 of air [1]. The curve is exponential. So, it works as long as the transformer is hotter than ambient air, even at the most humidest (100% RH). The transformer's heat will drop the relative humidity of the air near its surface, and the heated air can absorb more water again. If the humidity is below 100% RH, what changes is that the evaporating water could cool it to below ambient air temperature, same effect as in swamp coolers. [1] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/maximum-moisture-content-air-d_1403.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/maximum-moisture-content-...
  - pinkmuffinere 5mo ago
    Ah interesting!! I knew there was some relevant interaction with temperature, but was too lazy to look it up. Thanks for clarifying it!
raverbashing 5mo ago
Yes I mean besides the risk of arcing and getting people shocked yes it should help cooling them down (through evaporative cooling)

kranner 5mo ago

That's the temperature at the weather station in shade. The air temperature is higher in the sun in busy marketplaces from high surface temperature of tarred roads and the thermal island effect of poor Indian urban design. Also on the top floors of buildings it tends to be really bad (roofs are mostly uninsulated).

cyanydeez 5mo ago
Today, in May. I'm pretty sure its going to get much worse. How so do you think we'll find out why zuckerberg thinks he can hide away on an island when the civilization he's decided to manipulate can't sustain.
- kranner 5mo ago
  The weather in North India has been very weird this year. Normally it's pleasant in March and starts warming up in April all the way to end June. This year it got June-hot in April but then cooled down again in early May. From running ACs in April to even turning ceiling fans off for a few days in May is unheard of.
  - cyanydeez 5mo ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/wapo/2WBTIZKLAFGNXCCHGPI6EC7GVI.gif&w=1440&impolicy=high_res https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://...
  - port11 5mo ago
    The weather is weird everywhere. Portugal now gets weird semi-tropical storms. Belgium had nonsensical heat earlier this year and then hail rains, now we’re up for another heat wave in May. We’ve been warned about climate change, but I’m glad we waited so long to act, it’s definitely been worth it -.-

fulafel 5mo ago

Humanity needs to be in a serious hurry to ramp down fossil fuel use and production to curb the megadeaths. Eg the US has been going in the opposite direction for a while, net exporter of oil since 2021.

rapsey 5mo ago
If the green movement had any sense they would be promoting nuclear and lobbying to get plants built asap. Instead most of the green movement is against nuclear and only make things worse, i.e. germany now using huge amounts of coal.
- psb5 5mo ago
  Well the article is saying transformers are overheating. That means the entire distribution network is probably not rated for such high tempratures and god knows how that is going to be solved even if you change the power plant.
  - rapsey 5mo ago
    The thread is about the world moving off fossil fuels.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  Because nuclear energy is only popular in certain circles. No, nuclear waste is not a solved issue. Given Russia was very happily attacking Zaporizhzhia they aren't as safe as you might want to believe. Especially Germany has issues with it due to having stored tons of nuclear waste in old salt mines in barrels that start to leak. Fuck nuclear power.
  - gambiting 5mo ago
    >>Especially Germany has issues with it due to having stored tons of nuclear waste in old salt mines in barrels that start to leak. Isn't highly radioactive waste vitrified(turned into glass)? How is it leaking, exactly? And isn't the entire point of storing it inside salt that it's self sealing - even if there is a leak it won't go anywhere.

nomilk 5mo ago

Wonder how much the removal of trees and bitumening/concreting of surface areas contributes to radiative heating from the sun which then increases the temp of surrounding air, especially on still days.

bob1029 5mo ago
The Houston metroplex might be one of the best domestic examples of the urban heat island effect. They've got their own entire website about it. If you overlay the daily temperature curve of 77002 with any zip outside the beltway, the difference is incredible. The increased HVAC demand further compounds everything. Downtown Houston is truly hell during the hottest summer months. It can be 4am and your ac condenser will still be throwing the high pressure cutout switch. https://www.h3at.org/ https://www.h3at.org/
- metalman 5mo ago
  The sattelite feed I use has an infrared channel, and Houston's ring and web road structure stands out from geocyncronous orbit, whereas Mexico city is invisible, hot but not like the heat island effect of what must be one of the greatest amounts of concrete on the planet. https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/goes/ https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/goes/
graemep 5mo ago
[dead]
alphabeta3r56 5mo ago
In this specific case, the city is essentially bordering a desert.

nirui 5mo ago

Extended read: A Super El Niño Is Increasingly Likely, And It Could Be Record Strong (https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2026-05-07-super-el-nino-forecast-may2026 https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2026-05-07-super-el-ni...) If true, this summer and maybe winter maybe brutal.

leosanchez 5mo ago

Currently living in Southern India. The heat is unbearable.

pickleglitch 5mo ago

I expect at some point in my lifetime there will be places near the equator that will be rendered uninhabitable by climate change. There will be a climate refugee crisis. The future is looking bleak.

OptionOfT 5mo ago

As someone who lives in Phoenix, the 48C mark doesn't matter unless we know the humidity... 115C with 10% humidity (71.66F wet bulb) here is hot, but as long as you have water, you're better off here than in Florida with 85F at 90% humidity (87.46F wet bulb).