Dense fog envelops city, minimum temperature at 4.6°C

Mercury levels plummeted as cold winds from the Himalayas continued to sweep the plains for the second consecutive day, bringing the minimum temperature in the city to 4

Mercury levels plummeted as cold winds from the Himalayas continued to sweep the plains for the second consecutive day, bringing the minimum temperature in the city to 4.6 degrees Celsius. Air quality in the city also deteriorated to its worst in over a week and the situation expected to persist till the next week, as per official forecasts.

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The city was enveloped by a blanket of dense fog on Wednesday morning, which gave way to partially clouded skies during the afternoon.

While Gurugram’s automatic weather station (AWS) did not record the temperatures on Wednesday, the India Meteorological Department’s nearest monitoring station in Delhi’s Palam area recorded a maximum temperature of 15.2 degrees Celsius, while the minimum stood at 4.6 degrees Celsius. This indicates a steep drop from warmer conditions a few days ago. The Palam observatory on January 9 had recorded a maximum temperature of 19.2 degrees Celsius and a minimum of 11.4 degrees Celsius.

“Until Monday, we were seeing temperatures above normal. A cloud hanging above the city under the influence of a passing western disturbance had managed to trap the heat and warm up the air, but now that regular northwesterly winds are blowing again, cold drafts from the Himalayas are blowing over the plains and pushing the temperature down,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional forecasting centre in Delhi.

As per the IMD’s seven-day weather forecast for the region, moderate to very dense fog is expected to prevail in the mornings due to a high level of relative humidity after recent spells of rain. The maximum and minimum temperatures, at the end of the week, are expected to settle at about 7 degrees Celsius and 17 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Air quality in the city remained in the poor category, with a reading of 276 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) air quality index (AQI) bulletin on Wednesday. However, Gurugram and neighbouring Manesar remained the least polluted major cities in the National Capital Region, as Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad all recorded very poor air, with AQI readings ranging between 350 and 390.

The early air quality warning system for Delhi-NCR stated: “Winds are likely to slow down and ventilation conditions to remain very poor from 14th to 18th January which will lead to further deterioration in air quality... Air quality is likely to remain largely in the upper end of the very poor category with chances of reaching in severe category owing to poor ventilation conditions.”