City records coldest winter night at 19.5°C

Mumbai’s temperature dipped below 20 degrees Celsius for the first time this winter with a minimum temperature of 19.5 degrees Celsius, one degree above normal, being recorded on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. The maximum temperature also dropped to 30.4 degrees Celsius, two degrees below normal.

Last year, the coldest night was recorded on December 28 at 14.4 degrees Celsius. In the past decade, the lowest minimum temperature has fallen under 15 degrees Celsius, while the highest daytime temperature has gone beyond 34 degrees Celsius.

The all-time record for lowest minimum temperature is 10.6 degrees Celsius on December 20, 1949. The weather experts expect the temperature to dip further but not drastically.

Mahesh Palawat, vice president, meteorology, Skymet Weather, said, “This is happening across India. Even in Delhi the minimum temperature is around 12 degrees Celsius, though it should have been six or seven by now. This is because the northeasterly winds from the western Himalayas have started blowing now. So far, there were westerly winds that brought snowfall in Kashmir.”

Mr. Palawat said these winds will continue to blow till December 20 and the temperature is likely to drop by around two degrees in north Maharashtra and Konkan, parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.