Residents of Delhi woke up to yet another chilly morning and a dense blanket of fog on Thursday as temperatures dipped to 2 degrees Celsius, PTI reported, quoting the India Meteorological Department.
The Safdarjung observatory, which provides representative data for the city, recorded a minimum of 2 degrees Celsius, five notches below normal, as against 3.2 degrees Celsius logged on Wednesday. The weather stations at Lodhi Road and Ridge, meanwhile, recorded a minimum of 2.4 and 3.6 degrees Celsius, respectively.
In the plains, the IMD declares cold wave when the minimum temperature drops to 4 degrees Celsius. A “severe” cold wave is when the minimum is 2 degrees Celsius or less. Delhi recorded its coldest day this season on January 1, when the weather office recorded a temperature of 1.1 degree Celsius – the lowest in 15 years.
Visibility levels on Thursday lowered to 100 metres at the Palam observatory and to 201 metres at the Safdarjung observatory. Fog is classified as “very dense” when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres, and “dense” when it is between 51 and 200 metres, according to the weather department.
The weather department said that icy winds blowing from the western Himalayas to the plains were resulting in the weather conditions. “Cold and dry northerly and northwesterly winds from the western Himalayas have been barreling through the plains, bringing the minimum temperature in north India down,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, the head of the IMD’s regional forecasting centre.
Icy winds also gripped the neighbouring states of Delhi, with Narnaul in Haryana reporting a temperature of 1.8 degree Celsius, according to NDTV. A thick blanket of fog enveloped many places in Punjab and Haryana on Thursday morning.
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