India Peak Heat Blunder Shows Data Challenge of Climate Extremes

Late in May, a village on the outskirts of Delhi registered a temperature of 52.9 C (just over 127 F) — heat so extreme it would leave most surfaces too hot to touch and severely threaten residents’ health. Except the figure, released by the country’s official weather forecaster, was wrong.

The Mungeshpur weather station triggered the alert at the height of India’s summer when warnings are carefully watched, prompting newspapers, television stations and social media to swing into action. But within hours, the Indian Meteorological Department retracted the outlying figure, citing a malfunction at one of its automated weather stations.