The temperature will further rise in the coming days and the administration is prepared to deal with the heatwave conditions, the chief minister said.
Chandigarh, the common capital of the two states, recorded a high of 40.7 degrees Celsius. People may get some respite from the sweltering heat on Wednesday. A western disturbance may bring isolated rainfall over parts of Punjab and Haryana on Wednesday, according to the weather office.
On Friday, Delhi experienced a maximum temperature of 41.6 degrees Celsius and as per the weather department, the trend shown in March continues to grapple the city.
The relative humidity at 8.30 am was recorded at 48 per cent today.
Strong surface winds have been predicted today in the daytime with the maximum temperature expected to hover around 39 degrees Celsius. The weather bureau has forecast a partly cloudy sky for Tuesday (April 5).
IMD officials had said a prolonged dry spell has led to severe hot weather conditions in northwest India.
The maximum temperatures were above normal by 4.5 degrees over most parts of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
Heatwave conditions prevailed in mid and low hills of Himachal Pradesh in the past 15 days.
Under the influence of strong southwesterly winds from the Bay of Bengal to northeastern states at lower tropospheric levels, Isolated heavy rainfall has been forecasted over Arunachal Pradesh, Assam-Meghalaya between March 31 and April 3.
MeT dept.said the heatwave conditions in Rajasthan are likely to prevail on Saturday while some respite is expected from Sunday.
The IMD also said Coastal Karnataka, Southwest Rajasthan and Gujarat region will also experience the heatwave.
As coronavirus pandemic raged on for the second year, a number of countries around the world battled a wave of extreme weather events from wildfire in California to floods in Australia.
With no possibility of rainfall on Friday, the relative humidity is likely to be 68 per cent against 54 per cent on Thursday, IMD said.
On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a staggering high of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 Celsius) and could reach the same high on Saturday.
Heatwaves have claimed more than 17,000 lives in 50 years in India, according to a paper recently published by the country's top meteorologists.
Mercury is likely to drop by 3-4 degrees Celsius over the next five days
Hundreds of deaths were being investigated as heat related in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.
Mount Shasta, the volcano that towers over the region, was shrouded in a haze from smoke plumes that could be seen in images from weather satellites in space.
Lack of rainfall and hot winds blowing from Rajasthan was behind the severe weather condition, IMD said.
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