A mild heatwave continued to sweep parts of Bangladesh for a week until Wednesday with forecasts that it would continue for a while as the warmest month of year, April, began.
A mild heatwave occurs when temperature reaches or goes beyond 35C over a large area. On Wednesday, the heatwave swept 10 districts with the country鈥檚 highest day temperature of 38C recorded in Rajshahi.
The other districts swept by the heatwave were Pabna, Sirajganj, Naogaon, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Jashore, Chuadanga, Moulvibazar and Rangamati.
Just two days after the ongoing heatwave began on March 27, the day temperature had reached 41C in Jashore on March 29 and 40C in Baghabari of Sirajganj the same day.
Bangladesh Meteorological Department in its one-month weather outlook predicted that day temperature in April could reach as high as 42C on many days.
Past year witnessed the longest-ever heatwave in Bangladesh鈥檚 recorded history with the country getting baked through the entire month of April and parts of March. The heatwave was globally ranked an extreme event for it expanded from India stretching over Bangladesh and Thailand.
Parts of Bangladesh could witness rain between April 4 and 6, but the heatwave would continue in some places. Rain is predicted all over Bangladesh between April 10 and 12, but that might not bring the heatwave to an end.
The BMD also predicted two low pressures to form over the Bay of Bengal this month and at least one of them might intensify into a cyclonic storm.
The prospect of the heatwave continuing forewarns of long hours of power cuts. Bangladesh is struggling to import enough fuels to operate half of its power plants due to a shortage of the dollar.
With very high humidity and long hours of power cuts amidst temperature exceeding 40C, life could be very difficult in April, particularly for children and elderly people.
