Weather Today: The mercury has dipped again in the national capital as Delhiites woke up to a cold winter morning with temperatures falling to 7.4 degrees Celsius, as recorded at the Safdarjung Observatory of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday. The Met department has already warned that another “cold wave” is set to grip the city from Tuesday.
At 5:30 am today, Palam and Safdarjung recorded 9.8 degrees Celsius and 8.8 degrees Celsius temperatures respectively, the IMD stated. Meanwhile, the city’s visibility was recorded at 500 meters in Safdarjung and Palam this morning.
Yesterday, Delhi recorded a “cold day” with the temperature dropping to a maximum of 15 degrees Celsius, six notches below normal and the lowest this month. The minimum temperature settled at 8.8 degrees Celsius. A thick blanket of fog shrouded Delhi, lowering visibility to 100 metres and affecting traffic movement. Dense fog reduced visibility to 200 metres at Safdarjung and 100 metres at Palam.
Temperatures have been forecasted to dip further this week, while the air pollution levels will rise in the national capital region of Delhi due to the movement of the western disturbance further north eastwards from Jammu and Kashmir.
The weather department said dry northwesterly winds are likely to pick up from the afternoon of January 25 and persist during the subsequent 3-4 days over plains of north and adjoining parts of central and western India.
Under its influence, the current spell of dense to very dense fog in some pockets over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, north Rajasthan is also likely to persist over these areas till January 26 and decrease thereafter, it said.