Mercury hits season’s lowest at 3.8°C, day temperature rises

The minimum temperature in the city plummetted to 3.8 degrees Celsius on Saturday, marking the lowest temperature so far this winter. The temperature was five degrees

The minimum temperature in the city plummetted to 3.8 degrees Celsius on Saturday, marking the lowest temperature so far this winter. The temperature was five degrees below the normal and a dip from the 4 degrees Celsius recorded the previous day.

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There was a slight relief for residents as the maximum temperature increased to 20.1 degrees Celsius on Saturday, from 18.4 degrees Celsius the previous day and 13.1 degrees Celsius the day before. However, as per the data, the maximum temperature was two degrees below the normal.

Officials of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) pointed to cold winds from snow-capped mountains as the cause for the drop in temperatures. As per the IMD’s weekly forecast, the maximum temperature is expected to hover around 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday as well, while the minimum temperature is also expected to stay around 4 degrees Celsius. As per the weekly forecast, shallow fog might prevail in the morning hours, followed by cloudy skies later in the day.

Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre, said that cold wave conditions are likely to continue due to clear skies. “There may be some relief from cold wave around December 21, when another western disturbance is expected,” said Srivastava.

The air quality in the city deteriorated slightly on Saturday, with a reading of 260 (“poor”) on the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) air quality index (AQI) bulletin, up from Friday’s AQI of 224, also in the ”poor” category.

The level of ultrafine particulate matter having a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM 2.5) — the city’s primary pollutant —was recorded at 178.9 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) on Saturday, as per the data from the CPCB’s air quality monitor at Vikas Sadan in Sector 11.

According to the early air quality warning system for the National Capital Region (NCR), the air quality is likely to remain in the “poor” to lower-end of “very poor” category on Sunday. On Monday, the air quality might stay in the lower-end of “very poor” category. Further, the air quality is likely to remain largely in the lower-end of “very poor” category over the next five days.