Cold wave to return to capital in new year

The IMD declares a cold wave when the minimum temperature recorded over a station falls 5 degrees Celsius, or more, below normal. Except for December 25 and for a few hours on December 26, when Delhi experienced near cold wave conditions, the night temperatures have remained close to the normal range.

From Saturday, Delhi will once again come under the influence of weather brought by incoming western disturbances, IMD  officials said.

As per the latest forecast issued by the IMD, Delhi’s minimum temperatures will rise and hover around 7 – 8 degrees Celsius till early next week with the return of sunny and bright days.

For most days of this December, Delhi did not experience significant cold conditions and remained rain-free, thus remaining a rather dry winter. The rainy days varied from one day (2020) to four days (2021) in December, and the monthly rainfall ranged between 1.6mm (2020) and 33.9mm (2019), the IMD’s data stated.

“Rainfall was absent mainly because of the feeble western disturbances, most of which have been passing much to the north of India,” said IMD scientist R K Jenamani.

Normally, western disturbances — the west-ward propagating jet streams originating from the Mediterranean Sea — cause snow or rainfall enroute. Regions of north India, in particular, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh are affected due to the western disturbances in the winter season.