India, May 4 -- While temperatures cooled late this week even in northern India, if a person from north-western, western, or north-eastern regions of India were to look at India's average weather in April, they would be surprised. This is because while these regions were suffering from heat waves in the month, it was a relatively pleasant summer for India on average. Most of this trend in temperatures has to do with rainfall, which was rare in north-west, west, and central regions but usual or more than usual elsewhere.

India's average maximum temperature - this is the metric of relevance when looking at extreme heat in summer - in April was 35.11degC, according to the gridded dataset of the India Meteorological Department (IMD). This is...