On April 16, the West Bengal administration released a directive instructing schools, colleges, educational establishments and universities, comprising private institutions, to stay shut the following week due to intense heat wave conditions. Additionally, it even advanced the summer vacations of some educational institutions.
This was a step in the right direction because according to the data from the IMD’s gridded database, in 2023, for the first time, the maximum temperature crossed the 40°C mark in Kolkata for the month of April. The oldest data available in the IMD gridded database was from April 1952.
On April 14, 16 and 17 of this year, the city’s maximum temperature crossed the mark, peaking at 40.4°C on April 14. These measurements are for the surface temperature at two metres above ground level.
