123 Kolkata: The lowest Jan temperature this year in Kolkata is the highest among the lowest temperatures of the month in at least the past one and a half decades. With the cold spells lasting barely two to three days in a continuous stretch, Jan 2025 was relatively warmer than Jan in previous years. The Alipore Met office cites frequent western disturbances and delayed cessation of the North-East Monsoon as contributing factors.
The minimum temperature dipped to 12.3 degrees on Jan 11, making it the lowest this month as well as for the entire winter season. This was only the second time since 2012 when the mercury did not nosedive below 12 degrees Celsius. The Met office sees no respite from the summer-like feel for now.
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While a WD does not have a direct impact in this region, the system prevents the cold northerly wind from reaching the city. Even as a WD usually triggers rain in parts of north-western India, causing cold wave conditions post the showers from where the chill wind breezes into the city once the system passes, it did not cause much rain this time.
"Another factor is the delayed cessation of the North-East monsoon, which normally happens before Jan 22. But this time it happened on Jan 27. This also facilitated the easterly wind to inject moisture into the land on more days than usual, making Jan warmer," added Biswas.
While the cold-bearing northwesterly wind should dominate the moist and warm easterly wind system, this time the combination of the two systems was more frequent. The city normally experiences the chill on Makar Shankranti, which fell on Jan 14 this year. But this year, the minimum temperature at 16.6 degrees was 2.8 notches above normal.
While the all-time record of the lowest January temperature was 6.7, 125 years ago on Jan 20, 1899, in the past few years it plunged below 10 only once — Jan 9, 2013.