Colder end to Feb this season as min temp hovers near 8°C mark

Delhi experiences unusually cold end to February with minimum temperature at 8.3°C. Western disturbance expected to bring warmer weather and possible rain. Air quality remains moderate.

Delhi woke up to another chilly morning on Sunday, as winter dragged its feet on its exit, giving the Capital up for an unusually cold end to February.

People at Lodhi Gardens in New Delhi on Sunday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Sunday’s minimum temperature was 8.3°C, four degrees below normal and marginally lower than 8.7°C on Saturday. The minimum on Friday was 7.6°C on Friday, which was the city’s coldest day in the last week of February since 2019, when the temperature dipped to 7.0°C on February 28.

This cold spell is, however, likely to make way soon, with a western disturbance at the start of the next week likely to pull temperatures up, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

“The dip in minimum temperatures has primarily been down to clear skies. The absence of clouds keeps the days warm and nights cool because the heat generated during the day is able to disperse into the atmosphere easily at night, said IMD scientist Kuldeep Srivastava.

“We expect the cloud cover to return from Monday, which will bring the maximum down by a degree or so, but push the minimum up by similar degrees,” he added.

The western disturbance may bring rain to parts of the National Capital Region (NCR) on Monday, said IMD, but stressed that widespread showers were largely unlikely.

Another western disturbance is expected to impact Delhi from March 1 onwards, with chances of light rain the next day, said the agency.

“Winter is almost over and the minimum is likely to touch 10°C by Tuesday and 11°C by Wednesday. The impact of two back to back western disturbances will also bring back warmer winds again,” said Srivastava.

Still, temperatures have remained abnormally low for the last few days.

Delhi’s minimum was 12.2°C on Wednesday, 10.8°C on Thursday and 7.6°C on Friday.

In contrast, in the last week of February 2023, the lowest minimum was 10.4°C (on February 25), said IMD data. In 2022, the lowest minimum in the last week of February was 10.2°C (February 22) and in 2021, it was 10.7°C (February 23). In 2020, February ended with the minimum plateauing 11.8°C in the last week.

Delhi’s maximum temperature on Sunday was 27°C, a degree above normal and higher than 24.6°C a day earlier.

Forecasts show the maximum is expected to be around 26°C till Tuesday, before rising to 28°C by March 1.

Delhi’s relatively clean end to the month has also continued, with the air quality in the “moderate” for a fourth consecutive day. The 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) was 192 at 4pm on Sunday, unchanged from Saturday’s reading, but worse than 142 (moderate) on Friday.

Forecasts by the Centre’s Early Warning System (EWS) for Delhi – a forecasting model, shows Delhi’s air may drift to ‘poor’ on Monday, but is likely to improve to moderate in the subsequent 24 hours.

“Delhi’s air quality is likely to be in the ‘poor’ category on February 26 and ‘moderate’ category on February 27 and 28. The outlook for the subsequent six days shows air quality will oscillate between ‘moderate’ to ‘poor,” said EWS in its daily bulletin.