NEW DELHI: With persistent rain for the past few days, the minimum temperature settles at 16 degrees Celsius on Friday morning. Delhi woke up to light drizzle and breezy weather, experiencing the coldest March in six years, the weather department said.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a yellow alert for the city, forecasting light rain accompanied by thunderstorms or lightning during the night. Directions have been issues for citizens to prepare for moderate to severe weather conditions that could cause disruption during a yellow alert.
Saturday is likely to see a partly cloudy sky and no major disruption through rainfall.
The maximum temperature on Friday settled at 21.7 degrees Celsius. The sharp decline comes just days after the city was sweltering under a near-summer peak of 38°C.
Station-wise data showed that Palam recorded a minimum temperature of 14.7 degrees Celsius, 1.7 degrees below normal. Lodhi Road logged 15.8 degrees Celsius, 0.8 degrees above normal, while the Ridge recorded 15.1 degrees Celsius, 2.6 degrees below normal. Ayanagar reported 16 degrees Celsius, 0.2 degrees below normal. In the last 24 hours, Safdarjung recorded 6.6 mm of rainfall, Palam 5.4 mm, Lodhi Road 6.3 mm, Ridge 7.4 mm, and Ayanagar 5.6 mm, the weather department stated.
IMD said, the current weather conditions have been attributed to large-scale thunderstorm activity across several parts of the country and the successive approach of western disturbances.
“Day temperatures are likely to remain normal to below normal over the next week. No significant heat wave conditions are expected,” IMD noted. Meanwhile, the air quality in the capital remained significantly low, with the Air Quality Index ranking at 93 on Friday, placing it in the ‘satisfactory’ category.