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India recorded its eighth warmest year on record in 2025, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD)
Rising minimum temperatures, rather than daytime heat alone, played a key role in intensifying extreme weather across seasons
India experienced its warmest winter in 124 years, with heatwaves recorded as early as February
Extreme rainfall events increased sharply, triggering floods and landslides across the pre-monsoon and monsoon periods
Rain-related disasters overtook lightning as the deadliest climate hazard, accounting for nearly half of all climate-linked fatalities in 2025
India experienced its eighth warmest year on record in 2025, with the national average temperature 0.28 degrees Celsius (°C) above the 1991-2020 Long Period Average (LPA), according to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Annual Climate Statement 2025, released recently. The year also saw the hottest February on record nationally.
The five warmest years on record remain 2024 (+0.65°C), 2016 (+0.54°C), 2009 (+0.40°C), 2010 (+0.39°C) and 2017 (+0.38°C).
While maximum temperatures have risen faster over the long term, the steady increase in minimum temperatures is increasingly shaping heat stress, rainfall extremes and multi-hazard disasters. The rise in minimum, or night-time, temperatures rather than daytime heat alone defined the year, stretching extreme weather across seasons and amplifying damage from floods, landslides and heat stress.
Ten of India’s 15 warmest years since 1901 have occurred in just the last 15 years, between 2011 and 2025. The decade from 2016 to 2025 was the warmest on record, with an average temperature anomaly of +0.32°C.
Between 1901 and 2025, India’s annual mean temperature rose by 0.68°C per century. Maximum temperatures increased by 0.89°C per century, while minimum temperatures rose by 0.47°C — warming nights that are increasingly prolonging heat stress and driving instability beyond the summer months.
In seven of the first 11 months of 2025, spanning winter, pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons, India’s average temperature ranked among the 10 highest since records began in 1901, according to IMD monthly summaries reviewed by Down To Earth (DTE).
The impact of rising minimum temperatures was most visible in winter. India recorded its warmest winter in 124 years, with the January-February average temperature 1.17°C above normal, the IMD said.
February 2025 was the hottest February on record nationally, with an average temperature anomaly of +1.36°C. The month also recorded the highest-ever minimum temperature anomaly (+1.20°C) and the second-highest maximum temperature anomaly (+1.52°C).
For the first time, heatwave conditions were recorded in February. Goa and Maharashtra experienced India’s first heatwave of the year on February 25—an unprecedented event for the IMD-defined winter season.
January was also unusually warm, registering the second-highest mean temperature anomaly (+0.98°C) and the fifth-highest minimum temperature anomaly (+1.04°C) since 1901.
Despite winter rainfall being just 52 per cent of the LPA—the fifth driest January on record—extreme events were widespread. Heavy rain, floods and landslides occurred on 51 of the 59 winter days, according to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and DTE’s interactive atlas.
The pre-monsoon season (March-May) was 0.29°C warmer than normal, the IMD said. Its most striking feature, however, was the early onset of warm nights, as reported previously by DTE. On March 15, Odisha and Jharkhand recorded the first warm-night conditions of the year, nearly two weeks earlier than in 2024.
May recorded the highest all-India rainfall since 1901, at 126.7 millimetres, while total pre-monsoon rainfall was the third-highest on record. The excess rain triggered flash floods and landslides, sharply increasing extreme-event days even before the monsoon began.
Extreme weather occurred on almost every day of the pre-monsoon season. According to a recent CSE-DTE analysis, extreme-event days rose from 88 per cent of the season in 2022 to 99 per cent in 2025.
During the southwest monsoon (June-September), average temperatures remained above normal by +0.09°C, while national rainfall stood at 108 per cent of the LPA, the IMD said. But impacts were highly uneven and often deadly.
Northwest India received 127 per cent of its LPA, with intense rainfall concentrated in late August and early September. This triggered flash floods that severely affected Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.
Punjab experienced its worst floods since 1988, while Himachal Pradesh recorded heavy to extremely heavy rainfall on 98 of the 122 monsoon days, according to CSE-DTE analysis.
According to the annual IMD statement, central India and the southern peninsula also recorded surplus rainfall — 115 per cent and 110 per cent of LPA, respectively — while East and Northeast India faced a deficit monsoon at just 80 per cent of LPA, underscoring the uneven distribution of rainfall.
The IMD said the post-monsoon season (October-December) was slightly cooler than normal, with an average anomaly of -0.10°C. However, extreme weather continued.
An analysis by DTE based on its interactive extreme-events database shows that cold waves arrived earlier than in any year since 2022 and affected a wider geographic area.
For the first time in four years, cold-wave conditions were reported in 13 states across all four regions—northwest, central, east and northeast, and the southern peninsula—highlighting rising temperature variability even amid long-term warming.
Rainfall during the post-monsoon season was above normal at 111 per cent of the LPA. Cyclone Montha and episodes of localised intense rainfall proved deadly, killing at least 300 people, according to CSE-DTE analysis.
A review of IMD annual climate statements since 2019 shows that lightning has historically been India’s biggest weather-related killer, followed by floods. In 2025, however, rain-related events overtook lightning as the deadliest climate hazard, according to fatality data published in the IMD’s Annual Climate Statement 2025.
At least 2,760 deaths were recorded nationwide during the year. Of these, rain-related disasters including floods and landslides accounted for nearly half, with 1,372 fatalities, surpassing lightning-related deaths at 1,317.
The shift highlights how intensifying rainfall extremes across multiple seasons are now emerging as India’s most lethal climate risk.