NEW DELHI: Delhiites woke up to a bitterly cold Monday, with the maximum temperature being recorded at several notches below normal. The India Meteorological Centre (IMD) said that the cold spell will continue for the next couple of days.
“It was a severely cold day, with the maximum temperature settling 9.5 notches lower than what is normal for this time of the year. The maximum temperature was recorded at 12.9°C. The last time the maximum temperature registered such a sharp drop was in 2003, when it was recorded at 12.6°C,” Kuldeep Srivastava, a senior scientist at the IMD, told this newspaper.
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He said the cold wave condition is the result of heavy snowfall up north, especially in Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.“The cold wave will continue for the next two days, with the maximum temperature hovering in the range of 12-14°C. A low cloud cover is currently persisting over northwest India, bringing the temperatures down by several notches in the northern states and Union territories,” Srivastava said.
While the cold wave tightened its grip on the city, air quality was recorded in the ‘moderate’ range. Last week, the air quality touched ‘severe’ levels.
According to Sciences’ System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the air quality monitoring system of the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the national capital was recorded at 159 on Monday.
“The overall Delhi AQI was in the higher end of the moderate category on December 16 morning. High northwesterly surface winds are forecast for next two days,” the SAFAR said in a statement.