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IMD's May outlook flags localised heatwaves, not nationwide

The Earth Sciences Ministry's reading of IMD's monthly and extended-range forecast for May 2026 — and why the heat map is patchier than the headlines suggest.

What happened

The Ministry of Earth Sciences, through the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, presented the India Meteorological Department's latest monthly outlook and extended-range forecast for May 2026, with the message that the predicted heat does not warrant panic.
Above-normal maximum temperatures are likely over southern peninsular India and parts of the northeast and northwest; a large part of the country is expected to see normal to below-normal temperatures through the month.
Minimum (night-time) temperatures are also likely to stay above normal across several regions — a quieter but health-relevant signal, since warm nights deny the body its recovery window.
Heatwave conditions are expected over the Himalayan foothills, parts of the east coast (Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh and adjoining Tamil Nadu), and Gujarat and Maharashtra, with about 2–4 heatwave days above normal in those belts.
The extended-range forecast times the worst spells to the second week (May 8–14) and fourth week (May 22–28); the first and third weeks stay cooler because of rain and cloud from western disturbances and thunderstorms.
On the larger climate state: ENSO-neutral conditions prevail now, with El Nino likely to develop during the Southwest Monsoon season — a flag worth watching for the June–September rains.

Background & context

The forecast comes from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the national weather and climate service founded in 1875 and headquartered in New Delhi. IMD is the principal agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) — the same parent ministry that houses the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). IMD is also one of the World Meteorological Organization's recognised Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres (RSMC), with the specific mandate of naming and tracking tropical cyclones over the north Indian Ocean for a panel of neighbouring countries. Knowing the administering chain — MoES at the top, IMD as the operational forecaster — answers the recurring "which ministry/body issues this" pairing.

Two distinct products are being read together here, and aspirants should not blur them. The monthly outlook is a probabilistic statement about the average state of the coming month — whether maximum, minimum and rainfall are likely to be above, near or below the long-period average. The extended-range forecast (ERF) works on a weekly horizon, typically out to about four weeks, and is the product that lets IMD say "week 2 and week 4 will be hot, weeks 1 and 3 cooler." The ERF fills the gap between the short-range forecast (1–3 days), the medium-range (up to about 10 days) and the seasonal outlook (a full season ahead). The May statement therefore layers a season-scale ENSO signal, a month-scale outlook and a week-scale ERF into one briefing.

The climate driver underneath all of this is ENSO — the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, the coupled ocean–atmosphere cycle of the tropical Pacific. It has three phases: El Nino (anomalous warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific), La Nina (the cool, opposite phase) and the in-between neutral state, which is what prevails as of this forecast. For India the link is not to summer heat directly but to the monsoon: El Nino years are statistically associated with weaker, deficient Southwest Monsoon rainfall, while La Nina years tend to favour normal-to-above rains. That is precisely why a note about May temperatures pivots to flag a possible El Nino in the June–September season — the temperature story is the foreground, the monsoon risk is the real stake.

For Prelims

Issuing body: India Meteorological Department (IMD), founded 1875, HQ New Delhi — the nodal forecasting agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Two products read together: the monthly outlook (month-average, probabilistic: above / near / below normal) and the extended-range forecast (weekly, ~4 weeks ahead).
Heatwave — IMD's operational criterion (plains): declared when the maximum temperature reaches at least 40°C in the plains (≥30°C in hills, ≥37°C on the coast) and the departure from normal is in the heatwave range — a departure of 4.5–6.4°C above normal for a "heat wave," and 6.4°C or more for a "severe heat wave." A heatwave is thus defined by departure from local normal, not by a single absolute number everywhere.
Where the heat concentrates in this forecast: Himalayan foothills · east coast (Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, adjoining Tamil Nadu) · Gujarat · Maharashtra — about 2–4 heatwave days above normal.
Weekly timing (ERF): hotter in week 2 (May 8–14) and week 4 (May 22–28); cooler in weeks 1 and 3 (May 1–7, May 15–21) due to western disturbances and thunderstorms.
Western disturbances: extratropical storms that originate over the Mediterranean/Caspian region and travel eastward in the subtropical westerly jet, bringing winter and pre-monsoon rain and cloud to North India — here, the agent cooling weeks 1 and 3.
ENSO state: ENSO-neutral now, with El Nino likely during the Southwest Monsoon — relevant because El Nino is associated with weaker monsoon rainfall.
Agriculture read: conditions favourable for harvesting late Rabi crops in north/northwest; localised heat stress risk to summer crops — rice (Boro), maize and pulses — in parts of the south and northeast.
Public channels named: IMD website (mausam.imd.gov.in), the Mausam App, and the Mausamgram portal.
What it is NOT: this is not a nationwide heatwave declaration — much of the country is forecast normal-to-below-normal, and the heatwave belts are specific regions. It is not a seasonal monsoon forecast (that is a separate IMD product); the El Nino line is a watch, not a rainfall number. ENSO-neutral is not El Nino — they are distinct phases of the same cycle. And the heatwave threshold is a departure-from-normal criterion, not a flat "above 40°C everywhere."
The forecast-horizon set (so "match/how many" is survivable): Nowcast (≤3 hrs) · Short-range (1–3 days) · Medium-range (up to ~10 days) · Extended-range (up to ~4 weeks, weekly) · Seasonal/Long-range (a season ahead). The May briefing draws on the last three.
The ENSO phase set: El Nino · La Nina · Neutral — paired in UPSC with the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) as the three drivers most often invoked for monsoon variability.

For UPSC: IMD's May 2026 reading = ENSO-neutral now with El Nino likely in the SW monsoon; heatwaves are localised (east coast, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Himalayan foothills), not nationwide; a "heat wave" is a departure from local normal (4.5–6.4°C above), not a single absolute figure.

Why it matters

The problem the briefing addresses is as much communication as climate. A blanket "heatwave" headline triggers panic, mis-allocated relief and avoidable economic stop-start; a precise, region-and-week-resolved forecast lets state and district administrations pre-position the right response in the right place — drinking water, cooling shelters, uninterrupted power for the specific belts and the specific weeks at risk. This is the operational logic behind India's Heat Action Plans (HAPs), the city- and state-level protocols that translate an IMD forecast into early warning, hospital readiness, work-hour shifts and public advisories. Heat is now a recognised disaster-management challenge: prolonged extreme heat drives heat-stress mortality, strains the power grid through cooling demand, and reduces outdoor labour productivity, with the burden falling hardest on outdoor and informal workers.

The agriculture dimension sharpens the stakes. The forecast is read as favourable for harvesting late Rabi crops in the north and northwest — useful timing for wheat and other winter-sown crops being gathered in. But localised heat stress threatens summer crops in the south and northeast, named here as Boro rice, maize and pulses — which is why the advisory shifts farm operations to the cooler morning and evening hours, prescribes light and frequent irrigation, and flags livestock protection. The El Nino watch for the monsoon then raises the longer-horizon question: a weaker monsoon would feed directly into Kharif sowing, reservoir levels, rural demand and food-price inflation. A single seasonal note thus reaches into disaster preparedness, agriculture, energy and the macroeconomy at once.

For Mains

Data

Use the forecast as concrete, dated evidence of India's increasingly granular climate-prediction capability — monthly outlook plus weekly extended-range plus an ENSO watch — when arguing that early-warning systems are a frontline disaster-management tool (GS3.15).

Position

It states the government's stance: heat is to be managed through forecast-led, coordinated state–district preparedness (water, cooling, power) and farm advisories, rather than treated as an unmanageable emergency — a model answer line on proactive vs reactive disaster governance.

Exemplify

Cite the ENSO–monsoon linkage and the El Nino watch as a clean example of how a Pacific Ocean–atmosphere phenomenon propagates into Indian rainfall, agriculture and the rural economy — a teleconnection worth one precise sentence in any monsoon-variability answer (GS1.12).

Problematise

The note itself implies the gap: localised heat stress can still hurt Boro rice, maize and pulses, and warm nights add a less-watched health risk — forecasting skill is necessary but not sufficient without on-the-ground Heat Action Plans and labour-protection measures reaching the vulnerable.

Way-forward

Argue for embedding extended-range forecasts into city/state Heat Action Plans, hyperlocal agro-advisories (the Mausam/Mausamgram channels), heat-resilient cropping calendars, and grid-readiness for cooling-demand spikes.

Deploys into: geophysical phenomena and monsoon variability (ENSO/El Nino teleconnections); disaster management — extreme heat, early-warning systems and Heat Action Plans; and the agriculture-climate-economy chain through the monsoon.

Source

Ministry of Earth Sciences · 2026-05-02 · PRID 2257475 · PIB source ↗