Delhi shivers as temperature hits season’s lowest at 4.2°C
NEWDELHI: Delhi woke up to a foggy morning on Saturday, with minimum temperature dipping to 4.2 degrees Celsius — the lowest minimum temperature recorded this season, officials at the meteorological department said. Moderate fog has been predicted for Sunday morning and the maximum and minimum temperature is expected to be around 20 and 5 degrees Celsius respectively.
“The data available for the last seven years shows that Saturday was the coldest January 6 since 2012,” a MET official said. The previous recent recorded low for January 6 had been in 2014 when the minimum touched 7°Celsius.
On Saturday, the mercury dipped to 4.2 degrees Celsius, three degrees below normal and the lowest minimum temperature recorded in Delhi this season. The maximum temperature on Saturday was 20.8 degrees Celsius, a degree above normal.
The previous lowest temperature in January this year had been on Thursday when it was 5 degrees Celsius.
On Saturday, visibility at the Safdarjung observatory, which is considered a representative of the entire city, was down to 300m at 5.30am. “There was dense fog this morning. It improved to 400m at 8.30am, to 1,000m at 11.30am and 1,500m at 2.30pm... This clearance took place due to good windspeed to the tune of 15km per hour,” an official said.
Disruptions in train operations continued on Saturday. Over 95 trains were running late, 46 were rescheduled and 38 were cancelled due to low visibility in Delhi, railway officials said.
Meanwhile, a total of 82 flights were delayed in the city due to the weather, airport officials said.
Pollution-wise, Delhi’s average Air Quality Index (AQI) reached 404 on Saturday, in “severe” levels. This was slightly more than Friday’s 388 and marginally more than Thursday’s 362, both in “very poor” level. The AQI is calculated on a scale of 0-500. AQI between 0-50 is good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 severe.
According to the CPCB, at 6pm on Saturday, the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were 251.9ug/ m3 and 407.7ug/m3 respectively. This was more than Friday as at 6pm the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were 236.2ug/m3 and 354.1ug/m3.