Mercury may drop below 15°C this weekend: Met

KOLKATA: With dry and chilly north-westerly winds flowing in unhindered, the mercury is likely to slip below 15°C over the weekend in the city.

On Friday, the temperature, at 15.5°C, was a notch below the normal mark. The Alipore met office, however, predicts it could well touch the 14°C mark over the weekend. This dry and cold spell could continue till December 11 before it starts getting slightly warmer.


“The flow of north-westerly winds will continue for now and the cold feeling will stay,” said Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, deputy director (general meteorology), Alipore Meteorological Centre. “The northwesterly winds need to flow in consistently for the temperature to drop further. We expect the next spell to be chillier and the mercury could then slide further below. Even though it is difficult to predict, the spell could arrive by the middle of December,” a Met official said.

The Met office predicts weather will change marginally from December 11 onwards due to the formation of a new system. But this, again, would only be for a short period before winter sets in. And the next spell could see the mercury sliding down further.

“The first few days of December had been cooler last year. If the north-westerly continues, it should get chillier,” a Met official said.

But the IMD’s ‘winter outlook’ for Gangetic Bengal released on Monday predicted a warmer winter. Minimum temperature in the region could remain marginally higher than normal. Several reasons, including a weaker El Nino effect, have been cited for the rise in temperature. “Currently, equatorial sea surface temperatures are above normal across most of Pacific Ocean. The latest forecast from global climate models indicates a strong possibility of weak El Nino conditions to develop during the winter season,” said the IMD statement.

Earlier, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune, had predicted a warmer winter and “increased drought conditions” as a result of El Nino, the periodic weather phenomenon associated with the warming of surface temperatures in Pacific Ocean thought to be responsible for drought in India and other parts of South Asia.