Clear skies in parts of state when Patna shivered amid fog

PATNA: Just 150km away from Patna, Priti Bhatt and her two children played badminton in the warm sunshine on Friday when Patnaites shivered at 4.7 degrees C amid dense fog on the day.
"I am not wearing any sweater," the homemaker told a friend in Patna over the phone around 11am even on Saturday as she inquired if the Patna DM had extended the closure of the schools in the state capital.

Audibly delighted to know that the classes up to VIII have been suspended till January 10, the mother of the DPS-Patna's student declared she would now stay back at her engineer husband's official quarter at Dehri till January 10 morn to escape the biting chill of Patna.

Even Dehri's neighbouring Gaya has shivered over the past few days with the city recording 3.8 degrees C minimum temperature on Friday.

While weather experts ascribed the Gaya weather conditions to its plateau topography, they said the southern parts of Bihar were comparatively better off in terms of low temperature and foggy conditions as against north Bihar.

Showing satellite images, the weather experts explained the layer of fog formed from Delhi to Sikkim was over the places along the Himalaya foothills. In Bihar as well, the fog layer was over north Bihar and touched a few central districts, including Patna.

Most south Bihar districts, including Rohtas, Aurangabad, Gaya, Nawada, Jamui, Lakhisarai, Munger and Jehanabad, had over them clear skies on Saturday afternoon.

According to the weather experts, proximity to the snow-fed Himalayan region and presence of more water bodies in north Bihar lead to the formation of denser fog in this part of the state. "The entire stretch from Delhi to Patna has been under the grip of dense fog cover lately. This is primarily due to two reasons: cold northwesterly winds and moisture feeding from water bodies," said Pradhan Parth Sarthi, associate professor at the Centre for Environmental Science at the Central University of South Bihar.

The IMD had on Wednesday released the satellite image of an unbroken layer of fog spread across more than 2,000km of the Indian subcontinent — starting from central Pakistan in the west, running right through the Indo-Gangetic plains and ending around Tripura. By Saturday, the for layer has shrunk and now spread from Delhi to Sikkim. "It will further shrink and disappear in course of few days," said a weather expert.