Bhubaneswar, May 25: Soaring mercury levels has turned Odisha into a boiling cauldron with its capital bearing the brunt of the heat. The city, which sizzled at 42.6°C yesterday, recorded 42°C today.

The temperature has been hovering around 40°C in the capital for the last one week. The mercury level has also shot up in several other parts of the state with heatwave like conditions adding to the misery of the people.

Statistics of the last two decades show a distinct change in Bhubaneswar’s weather pattern with rise in the May temperatures since 2002. While the maximum average day temperature in the city during May in the decade between 1971 and 2000 was 37.2°C, it has been close 40°C in the succeeding decade.

The maximum May temperature recorded in the capital in 2002 was 46.1°C followed by 44.9°C in 2003 and 45.1°C in 2004. It was 44°C in 2008 and 42.6°C in 2011.

Director of regional meteorological centre S.C. Sahu blamed the hot winds coming from states such as Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for such hot and humid conditions prevailing in the state. He said there was unlikely to be any let up in the heat even in the next few days as the contributing factors would remain the same. People could expect some real relief from the heat only when the monsoon hits the state around the second week of June.

N.K. Mahalik, former professor of geology at Utkal University, said that the weather pattern in the state had not changed much in the last one decade.

“However, while we had five to six cyclones in the state between 2001 and 2009, which helped bring the temperatures down, cyclonic systems have been virtually absent in the last two to three years,” he said.

Significantly, while cyclones are more or less a coastal phenomenon, large parts of western Odisha have been facing desertification with forests getting denuded and hills losing their green cover. This, according to experts, would contribute to a rise in the heat in a big way.

“Western Odisha will be badly affected by the heat because of its hilly and rocky terrains,” said Mahalik.

In Bhubaneswar, too, the disappearance of green cover and water bodies is being blamed for the rise in mercury levels. The city, which lost more than half of its greenery in the supercyclone of 1999, is yet to be compensated by plantation drives on the same scale.

“Instead, more trees are being felled for expansion of roads and other kind of development activities,” said Bharat Sahu, a retired government employee.

People like Sahu also lament the loss of waterbodies, which once kept the capital cool during summer.

“Small waterbodies and wetlands are increasingly being filled up by unscrupulous builders to build skyscrapers. More often than not this happens in gross violation of laws, but no one seems to be paying any attention,” said Sahu.