PATNA: People of the state should expect some respite from the prevailing biting cold conditions only after two-three days, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday. The fog cover is also likely to gradually weaken.
However, the weather is expected to turn colder till then as the prevailing Cold Day condition at many places in the state is expected to be followed by
cold wave conditions.
Patna had the Cold Day condition for the second consecutive day on Tuesday and IMD issued warning for cold wave conditions at isolated places in Bihar on Thursday and Friday.
In meteorological parlance, cold wave conditions are declared at a place when the normal minimum temperature is 10 degrees Celsius or above, but the actual temperature is recorded at 7 degrees Celsius or even lower.
Cold Day condition, on the other hand, is declared when the minimum temperature touches 10 degrees C or low and there is a departure of 4.5-6.4 degrees C in maximum temperature.
Nonetheless, mercury continued to plunge further as the minimum temperature in Patna dropped by a notch in the past 24 hours and it was recorded at 7.1 degrees C on Tuesday morning, marking a new lowest for the season.
The gradual plunge in minimum temperature has been attributed to cold northwesterly winds blowing in the region at an average speed of 6-8 kmph. Low temperature apart, majority parts of Bihar remained engulfed in fog cover on Tuesday morning. As per all India weather bulletin issued by IMD, dense to very dense fog was observed in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and majority of the northern plains. Met officials said fog cover is termed as dense when visibility is between 50 and 500m. It is very dense if the visibility is below 50m.
The IMD bulletin further stated that Patna was among the few places in the country where visibility was as low as 25m from 11:30pm on Monday night to 8:30am on Tuesday. However, the national weather forecaster also predicted some respite from the fog cover owing to northwesterly winds blowing from the Himalayan region.
"Light winds currently prevailing over Indo-Gangetic plains are gradually strengthening. Also, the relative humidity, which was more than 80%, is now decreasing. A western disturbance is moving away eastward and another feeble western disturbance as a trough is likely to affect the western Himalayan region by January 4. Under the above scenario, density and duration of fog over Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are gradually decreasing," IMD's weather bulletin stated.
