Chilliest Christmas in 8 years, first ‘cold day’ of winter in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The capital celebrated its chilliest Christmas day in at least eight years, with icy northwesterly winds and light fog sending the maximum temperature plummeting to 16.2 degrees Celsius at Safdarjung on Sunday and ushering the season’s first “cold day” conditions.
Several parts of the city suffered a double whammy of “cold day” as well as “cold wave” conditions with the minimum temperature dropping to as low as 3 degrees C at the Ridge station, as intense chill swept across northern India.

The last time day temperatures had stayed at around 16 degrees C on Christmas day was in 2014. “Cold day” conditions are declared if the minimum temperature is below 10 degrees C and the maximum temperature is at least 4.5 degrees below normal. Under a “cold-wave”, the minimum temperature slips below 4 degrees C or is more than 4.5 degrees below normal.
Meanwhile, visibility improved slightly on Sunday but the city is likely to experience dense to moderate fog on Monday with possibility of improvement from December 27.
At 16.2 degrees C, the maximum temperature at the city’s base station, Safdarjung, was five notches below normal, having dropped sharply from 20 degrees C on Saturday, as per IMD records.