E-Paper
At 19.7 degrees Celsius, suburban Mumbai records season’s coolest day
The minimum temperature on Saturday dropped below the 20 degree Celsius-mark.
The minimum temperature on Saturday dropped below the 20 degree Celsius-mark.
The Santacruz weather observatory – representative of the suburbs and Mumbai – recorded the minimum temperature at 19.7 degrees Celsius, which is the lowest for this season.
However, there was a wide gap between the minimum temperature in the suburbs and in south Mumbai. The Colaba weather station – representative of south Mumbai – recorded 24 degrees Celsius, which was at the normal mark.
The weather bureau said that the minimum temperature was expected to hover in the range of 19 and 21 degrees Celsius over the next week owing to the current wind pattern.
“For the first time this season, Mumbai has recorded the minimum temperature below 20 degrees Celsius. The cool winds from easterly and north-easterly directions are leading to this change. This is also reducing the moisture in the city’s air, typical of the weather pattern during this time of the year,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general (western region), India Meteorological Department.
Kandivli was the coolest at 18.9 degrees Celsius, followed by Malad at 19.6 degrees Celsius, while Panvel was the coolest in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region at 14.8 degrees Celsius, according to the IMD’s automatic weather stations.
The maximum temperature, however, surged to 35.4 degrees Celsius, almost 2 degrees Celsius above normal, in the suburbs. This is the highest maximum temperature recorded in Mumbai suburbs for this season so far. South Mumbai recorded 34.2 degrees Celsius, a degree Celsius above normal. This means that the gap between the maximum and minimum temperature widened on Saturday to 15.7 degrees Celsius.
HT had reported earlier this week that if temperature variability was high it could lead to health ailments such as the seasonal flu, lead to a spike in swine flu cases, and could also create confusion among doctors and patients as the seasonal flu had similar symptoms as Covid-19.
Meanwhile, owing to a rise in the wind speed over the past 48 hours, the air quality index (AQI) has remained in the moderate category, as per the System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR). The AQI, which was at 221 (poor) earlier in the week, was at 149 (moderate) on Saturday. Pollution levels are likely to decline further as an AQI of 132 (moderate) has been predicted for Sunday.
SAFAR categorises AQI levels for PM2.5 in the 0-50 range as good; 51-100 as satisfactory; 101-200 as moderate; 201-300 as poor; 301-400 as very poor and above 400 as severe.
