India, March 25 -- Pleasant weather across much of India over the past week marks a sharp turnaround from the unusually warm first half of March, preventing the month from becoming one of the hottest on record, HT's analysis of India Meteorological Department's (IMD) gridded data shows. Here is how.

According to IMD's gridded data, India's average maximum temperature in the first 22 days of March is 31.35degC. This is only the 28th highest for this period since 1951, the first year for which IMD has published gridded data. It is also close to the normal of 30.89degC, which IMD considers the average for the 1981-2010 period.

To be sure, the month remains quite warm in terms of minimum temperatures. The average minimum temperature ranks a...