'Basalt rock radiation' may be heating up Bhira: IMD

After doubting an unprecedented 46.5 degrees Celsius temperature recorded at Bhira in the coastal Raigad district of Maharashtra, a Met department official today said it could be the effect of 'basalt rock radiation'.
"Our officials who visited Bhira with portable temperature mapping equipment got identical readings (as that recorded by local observatory). So we realised the reason for such a high temperature lies in the geography," said K S Hosalikar, deputy director, India Meteorological Department, Mumbai.
"The entire village is located in a valley with bare basalt rocks. The radiation of the heated basalt rock may be the probable reason behind Bhira heating so much. The officials will submit their detailed report in the next week and then I will be able to clear all the doubts," he told PTI.

IMD officials rushed to the village after the local observatory recorded the maximum temperature of 46.5 degrees Celsius on March 28. Officials were sceptical as the coastal Maharashtra doesn't witness such high temperatures.
IMD officials had said it could be 'local heat island effect', where one particular weather station reports a high temperature but not the surrounding ones.
Basalt rock heating up and generating radiation is a natural phenomenon, and the village is surrounded by rocky mountains which must have led to the recording of high temperature, Hosalikar said.