At 17.4° Celsius, Mumbai sees coldest morning of season

On Wednesday, the city temperature dipped to 17.4 degrees Celsius, the season’s coolest morning so far

Mumbai: On Wednesday, the city temperature dipped to 17.4 degrees Celsius, the season’s coolest morning so far. The mercury had last dropped below the 18 degrees Celsius mark on December 24, when it settled at 17.9 degrees Celsius, as per the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) observatory in Santacruz, which is taken as representative of the city and suburbs.

At 17.4° Celsius, Mumbai sees coldest morning of season. (Pratik Chorge/HT Photo)

Wednesday’s minimum temperature is down from 19 degrees Celsius the previous day. Officials attributed the dip to the influence of a cold snap blowing over the Konkan, carrying cooler air from north India. “Throughout the month there has been a lot of variation in the intensity and direction of winds. For Mumbai and surrounding, head on winds directly from the north are important for cooling at this time of the year. We are experiencing such winds at the moment, but there will be another spike in temperature in a few days once the wind direction changes again,” said an official with IMD’s regional forecasting centre in Mumbai.

As per IMD’s seven-day forecast for the city, the minimum temperature is expected to rise slightly over the next week, touching 19 degrees Celsius once again by December 31 and 21 degrees Celsius by January 3. The maximum temperature is expected to hover around 31 degrees Celsius during this time, up from the 29.3 degrees Celsius reading on Tuesday (which was two degrees below normal).

Air quality in Mumbai improved to the ‘moderate’ category on Wednesday evening, with an AQI value of 173. This was down from 239, indicating ‘poor’ air, earlier in the day as per the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research’s (SAFAR) network of monitors in the city. “This is because of the strong influence of northerly winds, but there will be a dip in speed after Saturday, so there may be another spike in pollution after that,” said the IMD official cited above.