PUNE: The ensuing summer could turn out be a scorcher for most parts of the country. The India Meteorological Department ’s forecast for March and April has indicated an “enhanced probability” of above-normal temperatures in several parts of India — central, western and southern regions.In April, the mean temperature is likely to be higher than normal by 1-1.5°C in Delhi, UP, Haryana, Chandigarh, Rajasthan, MP and most of Maharashtra. February has already turned out to be warm this winter for Maharashtra and the southern states, and the heat quotient is expected to spike further in the next two months. The monthly average temperature during March and April could be 1-1.5°C above normal in many parts of the country, especially central India.Forecasts show that parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the south peninsular states like Karnataka , Andhra and Tamil Nadu , among others, could see average temperatures higher than normal by around 0.5-1°C in March.April is likely to bring in higher mean temperature for most parts of the northwest and central India.The IMD’s monsoon mission climate forecast system is a modified version of the state-of-the-art “coupled climate” model adopted from the US’s National Centre for Environmental Prediction and has been implemented to the high-performance computing system at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology , Pune.An IMD official told TOI that all forecasts show the signature of the global-warming trend associated with greenhouse emissions. “As of now, large-scale climatic factors like El Nino (which tend to make temperatures warmer than normal) are not present. But since we had El Niño conditions up to June last year, that could also impact summer temperatures in the current year, making them higher than normal,” the official said. This possibility has been backed by a past study, he added.As per a meteorological department study conducted in 2012, the frequency, persistency and area coverage of heat waves or severe heat wave days were found to be more than average during years succeeding El Niño years. Using information from 103 stations from the Indian mainland during the hot weather season (March to July) for 50 years (1961-2010), the study said that during nine of the 11 El Niño+1 (years succeeding El Niño event) years, all India heat wave days were above its climatological value.Last year, El Niño conditions continued from February till June. In July, El Niño conditions turned into ENSO-neutral conditions (neither an El Niño nor La Niña) and it continued thereafter. Currently, ENSO neutral conditions are prevailing over the Pacific Ocean.El Niño and La Niña are Spanish for “little boy” and “little girl”, respectively. El Niño is a phenomenon of anomalous warming of the central and east equatorial Pacific Ocean, while La Niña is just the opposite phase of El Niño and is associated with anomalous cooling over the equatorial Pacific Ocean.