At 15.3°C, Mumbai records lowest temp of the season
MUMBAI: The city woke up to its coldest winter morning on Wednesday as temperatures dropped to 15.3 degrees Celsius, the lowest so far this winter. The dip in mercury is owing to cold winds blowing from north India, and is expected to last for a couple more days, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The Santacruz weather station — representative of Mumbai and suburbs — recorded a minimum temperature of 15.3 degrees Celsius, which was 2.2 degrees below normal. Earlier, on January 16, a minimum temperature of 16.6 degrees Celsius was recorded at Santacruz. Before that, the lowest minimum temperature of the ongoing winter season was 16 degrees Celsius on December 22, last year.
While this is the lowest January temperature for this year, it is still higher than last year’s record of 11.4 degrees Celsius on January 17.
Colaba recorded a minimum temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, which was 1.5 degrees below the normal temperature.
The drop in temperatures was in line with the IMD forecast. “As cold and dry north-western winds make their way into the state, minimum temperatures are likely to remain low for the next two-three days. Mumbai and Thane can expect temperatures to be around 15 degrees Celsius. In northern parts of the state and Vidarbha, temperatures can drop up to 10-12 degrees Celsius,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director-general of the western region, IMD.
Day temperatures also remained relatively low with Santacruz recording a maximum temperature of 29.7 degrees Celsius, 1.9 degrees below normal. At Colaba, the maximum temperature was 28 degrees Celsius, which was 2.3 degrees below normal.
Meanwhile, according to System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), air quality deteriorated on Wednesday after improving at the beginning of the week. An overall air quality index (AQI) — a pollutant measuring indicator — of 304 (very poor) was recorded on Wednesday. In the past weekend, AQI had plummeted to very poor category with AQI at 320 on Saturday and 310 on Sunday but improved to 283 (poor) on Monday.