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Delhi experiences coldest March night in 40 years

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By, New Delhi
Mar 02, 2019 10:07 AM IST

There could be another dip in temperatures once the next western disturbance passes off, though officials believe it won’t fall to such levels and hover around 9 degrees Celsius.

Delhi experienced its coldest March night in 40 years, with the minimum temperature being recorded at 6.8 degrees Celsius for the second consecutive day on Friday as an unusually longer winter stretched on.

Delhi experienced its coldest March night in 40 years, with the minimum temperature being recorded at 6.8 degrees Celsius for the second consecutive day on Friday .(Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)
Delhi experienced its coldest March night in 40 years, with the minimum temperature being recorded at 6.8 degrees Celsius for the second consecutive day on Friday .(Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

This is approximately 6 degrees Celsius lower than what is typically seen at this time of the year, qualifying the weather to be classified as a cold wave, officials at the weather department said. A cold wave is when the minimum temperature is below 10 degrees Celsius and it deviates by more than five degrees from the normal low expected for that period.

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“This is the third coldest night in 118 years and the coldest night in 40 years in the month of March,” said BP Yadav, deputy director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD), attributing the phenomenon to after effects of snowfall in mountains up north recently.

“The western disturbance that had hit Delhi-NCR [National Capital Region] and other parts of northwest India early this week triggered snow in the hills and hail in the plains of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Now that the disturbance has passed, strong northerly winds are blowing and bringing that chill. Hence the temperature has dropped,” Yadav said.

The maximum temperature was 24.1 degrees Celsius, 3 degrees below normal.

The IMD has, however, said the cold will relent over the next few days as another western disturbance approaches.

 

“The minimum temperature is expected to rise and reach 11 degrees Celsius over the next few days because of an approaching western disturbance. The day temperature is likely to drop by a few degrees. There are chances of light rain and thundershower on March 2 and March 3,” said an IMD official.

There could be another dip in temperatures once the next western disturbance passes off, though officials believe it won’t fall to such levels and hover around 9 degrees Celsius.

In 2018, Delhi had witnessed the third coldest December in 50 years — after 2005 and 1996. IMD data showed the average monthly minimum temperature in December 2018 was 6.7 degrees Celsius.

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The western disturbance on March 2 and 3 will be the fifteenth of the season, surpassing the usual five-six seen every winter. This despite the IMD having forecast last year that this would be a warmer winter due to the influence of El Nino over the Pacific Ocean.

Officials have attributed the weakening of the Polar Vortex — a system of very cold winds that remain in the Arctic Circle — to the increased frequency of western disturbances. The weaker Polar Vortex has made the temperature colder in the northern hemisphere, pushing up the divergence with the temperatures in the southern hemisphere. This leads to formation of western disturbances that form somewhere over the Mediterranean and sweep over parts of West Asia into India.

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