Most of India enjoys a comparatively warm temperature even during the winter season to promote plant growth shows temperature regimes for representative stations of the country.
In only two cases, both stations over 1500m above sea level, do absolute minima fall below freezing point? Average daily maxima lie generally within the comfortable 20s, only Pune and Bellary in the Peninsular interior and Kochi on the Kerala coast in the far south are among the stations illustrated exceeding 30°C (see also the tabulated climatic data in Summer isotherms suggest more homogeneous conditions than in winter, setting aside the mountains where elevation reduces shade temperatures appreciably (note the maxima for Leh and Shimla in Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.19) it is only in the near- equatorial south, along the West coast, and around the head of the Bay of Bengal that average daily maxima fail to top 38HC.
The effect of sentimentality is clear. Absolute maxima at stations well inland, like New Delhi, Jodhpur and Allahabad, lie in 40s for five or six months. As a rule the hottest months precede the onset of the rains and their extremely high temperatures tend to offset the beneficial effects of the pre-monsoon rains that may fall in April- May-June. May or June is usually the time of peak temperature, from which it falls quite sharply with the arrival of the monsoon, to a modest plateau in July-August and September. It declines further with the approach of winter when clear skies allow nighttime radiation to bring a higher diurnal range.
A distinctive characteristic Indian climate is its three fold divisions into: (i) the cool and mainly dry winter from November to February; (ii) the hot and mainly dry season from March or April into early June; and (iii) the wet monsoon, with ‘burst’ in June. This seasonality is as much a function of the rainfall as of the temperature regime (Johnson, 1979, pp. 48- 58).