At 14.8°Celsius, Mumbai records this season’s lowest temperature

At 14

At 14.8 degrees Celsius, Mumbai recorded its lowest temperature of the season on Friday morning. Cold north-western winds brought chill to the city, forecast by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has revealed.

Girgoan Chowphatty engulfed in heavy smog. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

IMD’s Santacruz station, which is indicative of temperatures in Mumbai and the suburbs, recorded a minimum temperature of 14.8 degree Celsius, down from 15.2 degree Celsius on Thursday and 2.7 degrees below normal. The Colaba station, which is indicative of south Mumbai, recorded the minimum temperature at 17.5 degree Celsius, which is 0.2 degree Celsius below normal and 0.1 degree Celsius below Thursday’s minimum temperature.

“Mumbai Santacruz recorded lowest min temperature of this season today (Friday) morning from Dec 2020. [There was] Good chill in air and a pleasant morning again, with first time in this season, the Santacruz Met Observatory recorded below 15°C. No large change expected in next 24 hrs. Thereafter gradual rise [of temperature is expected] (sic),” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general (western region), IMD, on Twitter.

Prior to this, the city had recorded the season’s lowest minimum temperature at 15 degrees Celsius on December 29 last year. Last season, the city’s lowest minimum temperature was 11.4 degrees Celsius, recorded on January 14, 2020.

Meanwhile, the maximum temperatures increased slightly, but remained well below normal. At Santacruz, the maximum temperature was 30.5 degrees Celsius, which was 1.1 degrees Celsius below normal. Colaba recorded a maximum temperature of 29.5 degrees Celsius – 0.8 degrees below normal.

The air quality also improved marginally on Thursday, though it remained in the ‘poor’ category. An overall air quality index (AQI) — the air quality indicator— of 290 was measured in the city, as compared to Wednesday’s 293 (poor).

“Due to calm wind conditions prevailing in Mumbai and the surrounding regions, continental air coming into the region is not getting dispersed. This condition is leading to poor AQI in Mumbai. With current calm weather conditions, local emission with continental pollution is likely to keep AQI in poor-very poor categories for Mumbai in the next two days,” said a spokesperson from SAFAR.

The AQI was calculated by the System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) as the average of indices recorded at 10 locations in Mumbai. 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.

Of the 10 locations, Malad had the worst it quality with an AQI of 334, followed by Andheri at 314 with an AQI of 313.