At 15.2°C, Mumbai wakes up to a nip in the air

Data from the weather bureau showed that on Tuesday morning, the Santacruz weather recording station logged 15.2°C, which is 1.8 degrees below the normal while the Colaba coastal observatory station registered 18.6°C.

Monday’s temperatures had marked a departure of three degrees from Sunday when the maximum temperatures hovered around 33°C. While Santacruz station recorded 30.3°C, one degree below the normal, the Colaba station registered 28°C, which was at least 2.6 degrees cooler than usual.

The ongoing cool spell comes days after the city reeled under its hottest January day since 2016 on Friday when the Santacruz station logged 36 degrees on the mercury scale.

Experts have attributed the current dip in temperatures to the influx of northerly winds from the northern belt, which started flowing following the passage of the western disturbance which had ushered in snowfall in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh last week.

According to the IMD, Mumbai will continue to experience below-normal temperatures for the next 2-3 days. In its forecast bulletin, the Met department has said that the suburbs will record a maximum temperature in the range of 31-32°C until Thursday, following which both the maximum as well as minimum temperatures are expected to soar.

After Thursday, the minimum temperature will rise to 19°C while the maximum temperature will hover around the 33-34°C mark. As per records, Mumbai’s coldest January day was in 1962 at 7.4°C while the warmest was recorded in 2006 at 37.4°C.

Meanwhile, Mumbai on Tuesday morning recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 127, which is regarded as moderate. Of the 25 monitoring stations in Mumbai, one station at Shivaji Nagar (Mankhurd) recorded a poor AQI of 249 and one station at Borivali recorded an AQI of 100 which is regarded as satisfactory. The remaining 23 stations continued to record moderate air on Tuesday morning.