PUNE: Koregaon Park resident Shruti Gaikwad had to slip into her warmest wear during the early morning walk on Wednesday with the city’s minimum temperature plunging unusually low to 10.6ºC, almost five notches below normal.
The city’s day temperature also dropped below normal to 29.6ºC due to the ongoing chill. India Meteorological Department (IMD) officials said isolated areas in the northern parts of the state recorded near-cold wave conditions on Wednesday. Among the areas were Pune, Nashik (10.6ºC), Parbhani, Gondia and Chandrapur. Parbhani was the coolest location in the state at 9.9ºC, followed by Shivajinagar and Nashik.
Pune’s minimum temperature on Wednesday was also one of the lowest November minimums in the past decade. Parbhani, at 9.9ºC, and Shivajinagar were the coolest spots in Maharashtra, with the minimum temperatures being lower than some cities in the north Indian plains such as Jalandhar, Patiala, Chandigarh and New Delhi.
In fact, Pune, Lohegaon, Kolhapur, Malegaon, Nashik and Satara witnessed a drop in day temperatures as well, as the mercury dipped below 30ºC, between 27ºC and 29ºC.
Gaikwad, a working professional, said, “Winter in Pune seems to have set in very early this time, unlike the past few years. This November seems too cold in comparison to what we experienced last November.”
Anupam Kashyapi, head of weather, IMD-Pune, told TOI, “The minimum temperatures have significantly dropped in some parts, including Maharashtra, of the country. A western disturbance recently passed the western Himalayan region, causing a drop in the minimums. Another western disturbance may affect the western Himalayan region from November 13-15, which will arrest further fall in theminimums. The easterly wind flow is expected to strengthen over the state during the next few days, which is likely to arrest the dipping temperature trend”
He said, “Negative departures in minimums are significant in some pockets of the state, but they still do not fulfil the ‘cold wave’ criteria. We have thus termed the situation as ‘near cold wave’ in parts of the state. The typical criteria for declaring ‘cold wave’ conditions in a region involves the actual minimum temperature dipping low enough to be equal to or below 10ºC and the departure being -4.5ºC to -6.4ºC in at least two locations.”