Monday, January 28, 2008

Northern India continues to be in the severe grip of the cold wave since the last 12 days without respite. The low temperatures mentioned in my last blog continue, with some new recordings of very low readings. Drass has recorded -30 c two days back. While Patsio in Lahaul-Spiti remain frozen at -25c, Dhundi in Kullu was at - 5.5c. Kalpa recorded a low of -12.6c and high of -2.2c. It also had 3.9-cm fresh snowfall over the past 24 hours. Pahalgam has touched -15c. Delhi has had almost all the minimums at below 5c since, and today on Monday it went back to 2c at Palam and 2.3c at Sfd. Chandigarh's 0c is the lowest in Jan. This diagram of Amritsar shows how the temperature there has fropped and remained below normal (blue area).

The map shows the cold has crept in southwards to Gujarat and Maharashtra. Some of the very lows in Gujarat were 4.5c at Naliya and 6.8c at Rajkot.

In Maharashtra, the lowest was 4,5 c at Nasik. Pune was 5.8c and Lower Mahableshwar was 5.5c. First hand reports from Shiraz in Mahableshwar say of frost on car tops in some areas of the hill station.( all on Sunday,27th.)
On the same day,Mumbai airport was 10.2c. The last time 10c was recorded was in 1991. Colaba was at 14.8c. But this is no record as mentioned in many a reports. The lowest ever at colaba was 11.7c. Mumbai, usually warm and humid, is enjoying below normal temperatures since the last 10 days.

Now with W.D. approaching by the 3rd. over north India, the cold spell is likely to abate.
However, the trough aloft mentioned in my blog earliar is now giving way to a ridge. This means the flow of W.D.s will cease, and we may overall see an upward trend in temperatures.

2 comments:

shiraz satarawala said...

Frost is common in Mahabaleshwar during winter months. It usually occurs between Christmas and New Year. 4th-5th December '07 and 25th-26th January '08 have been the coldest days this winter when we have had frost mostly around the Venna lake.

Rajesh said...

Thanks Shiraz for sharing the information with us.

Rajesh.

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