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Capital braces for cold snap as hills hit by heavy snow
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said a cold wave is likely for the Delhi-NCR region beginning late Sunday or the next week, with night temperatures reaching low single-digits, far colder than the 10°C recorded on Saturday.
A cold snap began to take hold in parts of north India on Saturday, plunging the minimum temperature to a low of -0.7°C in Churu, Rajasthan, as frosty winds from snow-clad mountains swept in.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said a cold wave is likely for the Delhi-NCR region beginning late Sunday or the next week, with night temperatures reaching low single-digits, far colder than the 10°C recorded on Saturday.
“Cold wave is likely to prevail over many places of Delhi and NCR between January 16 and January 18. Minimum temperature at Ayanagar and Ridge is expected to be around 3 degrees Celsius on January 17 and 18,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre.
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The source of these frosty winds, snow in Kashmir and parts of Himalayas, was set to strengthen. Weather officials issued avalanche warnings for several regions, with a “high danger” alert for Kupwara, and “medium danger” alert for eight other districts.
Met recordings showed that on Saturday, Churu in Rajasthan recorded the lowest minimum temperature for plains.
Fatehpur, also in Rajasthan, recorded -3.5°C, but the data was yet to be corroborated, officials said, attributing the reading to an automatic station instead of manual recordings that are usually done at regional weather stations.
Also Read: Delhi temperature won't dip to subzero, says agency amid -4 prediction for North India
Mahesh Palawat, vice-president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet weather services, said the icy cold winds from the mountains have started blowing over Rajasthan and Gujarat, and the phenomenon will extend to Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, western UP and western Madhya Pradesh from January 14-15.
Palawat said this coldwave spell will be the last of such spells for the season and temperatures in this region is expected to rise again January 23-24. “From January 26, there is a forecast of a slight drop but it will not be very significant,” he added.
IMD has also forecast dense to very dense fog in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and UP in the next five days.
“Dense fog very likely in isolated pockets during night and morning hours over Bihar during next five days; Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand during next four days and Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, north Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya and Tripura during next two days,” the IMD forecast read.
In Kashmir, days of heavy snow led to at least one avalanche and warnings for the possibility of several others. An avalanche hit a village in Gurez sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district on Saturday, news agency ANI reported, but there was no loss of life or damage to property. An avalanche warning was issued for 12 districts, including Bandipora, after moderate to heavy snowfall a day before, the news agency cited officials as saying.
The avalanche that took place struck Jurniyal village of Gurez on Saturday afternoon.
“Avalanche with high danger level is likely to occur above 2,000 metres of Kupwara district in the next 24 hours. Avalanche with medium danger level is likely to occur above 2,000 metres over Bandipora, Baramulla, Doda, Ganderbal, Kishtwar, Poonch, Ramban and Reasi districts in the next 24 hours,” State Disaster Management Authority officials said, according to ANI.
Two labourers from Kishtwar died on Thursday when an avalanche hit the work site of a construction company in Ganderbal district’s Sonamarg.
Some climate scientists cited weather models as predicting sub-zero temperatures in many parts of northern plains, though the community moved to allay these concerns on Saturday.
On January 11, Navdeep Dahiya, a private weather forecaster, said in a tweet: “Don’t know how to put this up but upcoming spell of coldwave in India looks really extreme during January 14-19, 2023, with peak on January 16-18. Never seen temperature ensemble going this low in a prediction model so far in my career. Freezing –4 degrees Celsius to +2 degrees Celsius in plains”.
Ensemble predictions, to be sure, have a wide range and much can change.
On Saturday, Skymet weather services clarified that sub-zero temperatures were unlikely in these parts.
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