Actual 37, but feels like 50: Chennai battles sweltering heat
Around Anna Nagar area, the heat was 37 degrees Celsius, but felt much worse because of the humidity. Google did back the feeling, saying it indeed felt like 50 degrees Celsius.
CHENNAI: At 37 degrees Celsius, the heat in Chennai is not high enough to make it to the record books. But anyone who had to be outside to know how it really felt. Or, better still, check Google, which echoed what the people were feeling and saying: it felt like 50 degrees Celsius.
Around Anna Nagar area, the heat was 37 degrees Celsius, but felt much worse because of the humidity. Google did back the feeling, saying it indeed felt like 50 degrees Celsius.
In another case, a netizen posted on X that it was a hot and humid day.
"The real feel has crossed 50 [degrees]. I went out for an hour and got roasted. Why is there no warming from the metrological department or Govt. ? Serious heat wave (sic)."
Responding to this, the popular weather blogger
Chennai Rains said, "Feels like / Real Feel temperature is not officially used in India, hence heat wave warnings are based on actual 2m air temperatures. You have a point though, the high humidity makes it very uncomfortable even if the actual temperature is not very high in #Chennai (sic)."
On Friday, the day of polling for the Lok Sabha election in Tamil Nadu, as many as 17 weather stations around Tamil Nadu recorded the highest temperature of the year. The worst was Erode and Vaniyambadi that recorded a blistering 43 degrees Celsius.
10 weather stations recorded 3 degrees Celsius above normal, including Erode where the temperature variation was as high as 5.2 degrees Celsius above normal.