April turns too hot

A pair of crows atop the branch of a tree in Ramna Park try to deal with the sweltering heat yesterday, keeping their beaks open and slightly extending their wings. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq

For the last few weeks, the mercury has been creeping up mercilessly and there is no promise of rain in the next few days.
Unlike an average month of April, when people get respite from the sweltering heat due to powerful but short-lived nor'westers known as Kalbaishakhi, the country hardly saw any such storms this month.
The Met office recorded only 2mm of rainfall in Sylhet in the last 10 days and nothing elsewhere across the country.
With humidity only around the 20's, it “feels” a little less hot and people do not sweat as much.
On the downside, people are feeling the pinch of the heat right from the morning. The lows in recent days hovered around 28 degrees Celsius and one starts to feel uncomfortable if the temperature is above 27 degrees.
This makes people want to stay indoors as much as possible and keep the fans or air conditioners running. As a result, the country's daytime power demand has inched closer to its evening power demand, usually the highest in the day.
The Power Development Board says it generates enough electricity to meet all demands. But as the daytime demand has soared to 6,500 megawatts from last month's 4,500MW, many local power distribution systems were overheating.
The local power distributors were shutting down their systems three-four times a day to avoid serious damage to their systems, officials said, adding that this was depriving people of the power the country was adequately generating.
Meanwhile, the Met office recorded the highest 40.7 degrees Celsius temperature in Rangamati yesterday and 37.8 degrees in Dhaka yesterday.
“The same weather would continue for at least a few more days. The temperature may fall after two-three days but it would increase again,” said Arif Hossain, duty forecasting officer of Dhaka Met office.  
On Sunday the temperature in Dhaka was 38.5 degrees Celsius, on Saturday it was 37.7, on Friday it was 37.2, on Thursday 37.2, on Wednesday 37.7, on Tuesday last it was 35.6 degrees.
The Met office recorded highest temperature in Dhaka on April 30, 1960, which was 42.3 degrees Celsius. The country's highest 45.1 degrees Celsius was recorded in Rajshahi in 1972.