India awaits monsoon rains as killer heat wave continues

Killer heat followed by drenching, flooding rains: That is spring and summer in India.

India's brutal heat wave — by one measure the fifth-deadliest on record — has the nation's 1.2 billion people looking south for some cooling monsoon relief.

The double-edged sword of the summer monsoon is slowly approaching and should reach India over the weekend, the Indian Meteorological Department predicted. While rains from the monsoon reduce temperatures, they can also lead to deadly and devastating flooding.

A monsoon isn't a rainstorm. Instead, it's a seasonal shift in wind direction that brings rain.

May tends to be the hottest month in India, but this year it's been especially bad: Temperatures across much of India have been 9 degrees above average this May, with extremely high humidity, said Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters. The heat is causing roads to melt and hospitals to fill with heatstroke victims.

More than 1,800 people have died in the extreme temperatures, the fifth-highest death toll from heat on record worldwide, according to EM-DAT, the International Disaster Database. It's also the second-deadliest in India's history. In 1998, more than 2,500 people died in India.

"With over 400 deaths recorded in just the past day and the heat expected to continue over India for another week, the 1998 death toll could well be exceeded in this year's heat wave," Masters said.

The monsoon's arrival brings rains that cool India's scorching May heat. Those rains also give life, providing 70% to 80% of the year's total rainfall in just four months, according to Masters.

The India Meteorological Department predicts the arrival of the monsoon at the southern tip of India will occur this weekend on May 30. That's two days ahead of the average arrival date of June 1. The monsoon should move through the province hardest hit by this year's heat wave, Andhra Prahesh, by June 5.

However, due to shifting weather patterns from El Nino, the monsoon is expected to bring below-normal rainfall across India this year, which will likely lead to further heat waves throughout the summer months, AccuWeather meteorologist Eric Leister said.

While southern India should get some relief from the monsoon, the core of the heat next week will be centered from Pakistan eastward across northwest and north-central India, including New Delhi, Leister said.

How does climate change fit in? This year's deadly heat wave in India was made much more probable by the fact that Earth is experiencing its hottest temperatures on record. The past 12 months were the warmest 12-month period in recorded history, as was the January 2015 through April 2015 period, the National Climatic Data Center reported.

The India Meteorological Department said that a warming climate increased heat waves in India by a third between 1961 to 2010.

As the planet continues to warm due to human-caused global warming, heat waves will become more frequent and more intense, and heat-related deaths will soar as a result, Masters said.