Kolkata: Since December, winter has seen prolonged spells of stable, above-normal temperatures, compared to the erratic shifts and sudden plummets in the mercury during most years. Forecasting no imminent temperature changes until the end of next week, local meteorologists said El Niño is keeping the cold at bay this winter.
On December 23, the minimum temperature scaled up to 16.9° Celsius and then reached last month’s highest of 17.6° Celsius on December 27 from the season’s lowest of 13.7° on December 18.Since then, the minimum temperature has consistently remained above 15° Celsius except on January 3, when it dipped to 14° Celsius, considered normal for the first week of January. Daily temperature changes this season have mostly been less than a degree, compared to the one to two notches of shifts in daily minimum temperatures seen most years.
“El Niño definitely has a role to play in the delay in winter conditions in Kolkata. It has indirectly caused the frequent occurrence of weak western disturbances, preventing temperatures from falling substantially. Typically, we find a one- to two-week gap between strong western disturbances to see a noticeable fall in temperatures,” said Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) director G K Das.
Just last year, the minimum temperature plummeted from 17.6 to 10.9° Celsius in the first six days of January, before rising to 12° Celsius the following day. Even during the last El Niño winter of 2015, the temperature fell from 18.3° to 13.5° Celsius in the first week of January. This indicates that the impact of El Niño is possibly more severe this year.
“In the foreseeable future, the minimum temperature is unlikely to fall below 15° Celsius,” said Das. A forecast of rain in Malda, Murshidabad, East and West Burdwan was expected to pull the temperature down by upto two notches. However, the trace rain on Saturday did not reduce the temperature. Just after the rain spell, the minimum temperature in Kolkata increased from 15.5° to 16.7° Celsius between Saturday and Sunday.
For over a week, a slow-moving band of thick fog over Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has been blocking the inroads of cold northwesterly winds, which typically pull the temperature down in winter. Except on the morning of December 24, when the visibility was less than 50m, the city has only seen limited fog this year. Like the last two weeks, on Monday the skies are likely to be clear and sunny, and the maximum and minimum temperature are likely to be around 25° and 17° Celsius respectively.
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