Day chill numbs Delhi

Delhi continued to shiver under a blanket of gray clouds on a dark and damp winter Sunday with the temperature mostly stuck between 12 and 13 degrees Celsius during the day.

Delhi continued to shiver under a blanket of gray clouds on a dark and damp winter Sunday with the temperature mostly stuck between 12 and 13 degrees Celsius during the day.

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For a short while in the afternoon the mercury did touch 15.3 degrees Celsius — the day’s maximum. But with the maximum at its lowest, it was in a way Delhi’s coldest day this season.

Conventionally, it is the minimum temperature that determines the coldest day. But the maximum temperature is the real indicator of how cold a day was, as opposed to the minimum, which is recorded at daybreak.

On Sunday, for instance, although the minimum was a rather warm 9°C, a couple of notches warmer than normal, the maximum temperature—15.3°C—was seven degrees below normal.

While this was the lowest the maximum has hit this winter, January has thrown up lower maximum temperatures in the past.

“Cold day conditions are prevailing at the moment thanks to the clouds and fog,” said B.P. Yadav, Director (Weather Forecasting), India Meteorological Department. “But we expect minimum to fall and the maximum to increase after January 5.”

The weatherman has predicted fog in the morning, but due to an increase in the wind, the fog is not likely to be dense, he said.