No respite from cold wave for another 2 days in UP

LUCKNOW: Cold wave continued to sweep the state with minimum temperatures in several districts dropping below 5 degrees Celsius on Sunday. Faizabad was the coldest, recording a minimum temperature of 3 degrees Celsius. Other districts that recorded low temperatures were Kanpur where the minimum temperature dropped to 3.1 degrees Celsius followed by Prayagraj and Hamirpur recording 3.2 degrees Celsius. Varanasi, Fursatganj, Jhansi, Orai, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Najibabad, Agra and Aligarh and others also recorded minimum temperatures between 3.8 and 4.4 degrees Celsius.
Lucknow was enveloped in the dense fog till late morning hours dropping visibility to less than 50 metres on Sunday. It was for the second consecutive day that the city’s minimum temperature dropped to 4.1 degrees Celsius, around 3.7 degrees Celsius below normal. People woke up to icy cold winds and fog cover that stayed around till 11:30 a.m. Even sunlight in the afternoon didn’t give much relief as it was accompanied by cool icy winds. According to Met department officials, people of Lucknow are likely to get some relief from the prevailing intense cold conditions from Wednesday onwards. “No relief from the cold conditions is expected till Tuesday.
On Monday the city is likely to face dense or very dense fog in the morning while the minimum and maximum temperatures will be 4 and 16 degrees Celsius respectively,” said senior scientist Mohd Danish from Met Centre Lucknow. He said the first eight days of January have never been so cold during the daytime in the last 10 years. People are feeling colder as day temperatures have witnessed a drop of 10 degrees Celsius. Earlier night temperatures have fallen below even to 2.5 degrees Celsius in Lucknow, but since people were asleep at that time they didn’t feel the chill, he added.
On Sunday maximum temperatures were around 13.3 degrees Celsius, which was 8 notches below normal, but due to cool icy winds blowing throughout the day and fog blocking the sunlight people continued to shiver. “Cold and dry northwesterlies have been keeping the temperature on the lower side in the past few days. Due to a fresh western disturbance, there will be some relief in the coming days as the temperature is expected to go up by a few degrees,” he added