Missing chill, temperature to remain ‘above normal’ for next five to six days: Met office
Telegraph | 9 November 2024
November is in its second week but the chill of the northwesterly winds eludes the city.
The Met office has ruled out any significant slide in the Celsius for the next five to six days. There will be a gradual dip in the minimum temperature after that, said an official.
A trough on the Bay of Bengal could bring some rain to the coastal pockets of south Bengal this weekend, he said. The sky in Calcutta is likely to be cloudy on Sunday, according to the forecast.
“For now, the temperature is likely to remain above normal. The minimum temperature is likely to be between 23 and 25 degrees Celsius for the next five to six days. After that, the temperature is likely to go down gradually,” said H.R Biswas, head of the weather section at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.
The usual minimum temperature in Calcutta in the second week of November is around 21 degrees, according to Met records.
The warm clothes are yet to come out in Calcutta. The only visible change is that the days are becoming shorter.
Raju, who drives a horse-drawn carriage near the Victoria Memorial, was sitting idle around 4.45pm on Friday.
“Business is dull. Had it been colder, the number of visitors would have been much more,” he said.
A series of phaetons were parked along Queen’s Way, outside the North Gate of Victoria.
The Maidan greens and the gates of the Victoria Memorial, Nandan and Rabindra Sadan were crowded. But it was hard to spot someone in a layer of warm clothing.
Unlike the monsoon, there is no official announcement from the Met office on the onset of winter in Calcutta. But three to four days without rain and the minimum temperature of less than 15 degrees are usually the markers of the onset of winter.
The northwesterly winds from Kashmir are the usual agents of chill that reach Calcutta via Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Bihar.
“The northwesterly winds in the lower level of the atmosphere lack intensity. There is some moisture incursion via easterly winds from the Bay. Moisture is inimical to the free passage of northwesterly winds,” said Biswas.
The minimum temperature is on the higher side across swathes of north India.
“Minimum temperatures continue to be above normal by 3-5 degrees over most places of Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand,” said a bulletin issued by the IMD headquarters in Delhi on Friday.
A cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal is likely to intensify into a low-pressure area by Sunday, the bulletin said.
But it is likely to move towards the Tamil Nadu-Sri Lanka coastline and will have no direct impact on Bengal, a Met official said.