Myanmar suffers record-breaking pre-monsoon heat

Yangon, the commercial capital of Myanmar, recorded 42 degrees Celsius on Friday. According to records retrieved from archives held by the Deutscher Wetterdienst, this was a new record for the city.

The previous April high temperature was listed as 41.1C. These records go back to 1881.

The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology in Myanmar noted new records for five cities on Friday and Yangon was not the hottest. The city and port of Chauk, on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar, has been hitting 45C regularly since April 12.

On Thursday, Chauk notched up 46.4C, which is 5C above the average and with the air from the river keeping the relative humidity at 25 percent, these conditions are difficult to endure.

U Kyaw Moe Oo, director general of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, warned that temperatures may be higher than normal this summer: it is an El Nino year and that can mean drier and hotter weather than is normal.

At the moment, El Nino is weak and is forecast to stay that way throughout the summer. The monsoon rains should arrive as normal under such conditions. May is when it should start raining in Yangon. That would induce a fall in temperatures, but a rise in humidity.

Nevertheless, the combination of a warming climate and a weak El Nino in the Pacific could both weaken the monsoon rains and allow a consequent hotter than normal summer.