It is freezing cold all over northern plains unlike any other year before, as earlier cold use to slowly get turn into sub-zero temperatures. But now freezing point has raised in just a single day, with the mercury dropped to below-zero in as many as three cities, with Hisar in Haryana recording -1.2 degrees Celsius and Churu (Rajasthan) and Bathinda (Punjab) -0.2 degrees Celsius each.
Also two other cities clocked near-zero temperatures, these were Faridkot in Punjab and Narnaul in Haryana, both recording a minimum of 0.2 degrees C.
More to the north-east, the Lucknow airport clocked 0.5 degrees C while Delhi reported its lowest January temperature of 1.1 degrees C at Safdarjung.
Head of IMD, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra says, “Lower than normal minimum temperatures in the northern plains were expected this winter. The India Meteorological Department had said as much in its seasonal forecast in early December. On a global scale, this is a La Nina year, when temperatures over the Pacific are unusually low. Such years normally lead to harsh winters in north India,”
Also the IMD officials stated, ‘The latest spell of severe cold weather was caused by icy northerly/northwesterly winds sweeping across the region amid clear skies – conditions that lead to bitterly cold nights as heat from the sun quickly dissipates at night in the absence of a cloud cover.’
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