Severe cold wave in Delhi on New Year's Day; min dips to 1.1 deg C, lowest in 14 years

A severe cold wave swept Delhi on New Year's Day as mercury plummeted to 1.1 degrees Celsius, lowest in 14 years, and "very dense" fog lowered visibility to "zero" metres, affecting traffic movement.

On January 8, 2006, city h recorded a minimum of 0.2 degree Celsius.

lowest minimum temperature recorded in January last year was 2.4 degrees Celsius, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Kuldeep Srivastava, he of IMD's regional forecasting centre, said "very dense" fog lowered visibility to "zero" metres at Safdarjung and Palam at 6 am.

According to IMD, "very dense" fog is when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres. In case of "dense" fog, visibility is between 51 and 200 metres, "moderate" 201 and 500 metres, and "shallow" 501 and 1,000 metres.

Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative data for city, recorded a minimum of 1.1 degrees Celsius, lowest in January in 14 years.

Delhi recorded a minimum of 3.3 degrees Celsius on Thursday. At 15.2 degrees Celsius, city recorded season's lowest maximum temperature on December 18.

Srivastava said minimum temperature will start rising under influence of an "intense" western disturbance which will affect rthwest India from January 2 to January 6.

minimum temperature is predicted to rise to 8 degrees Celsius by January 4-5.

Light rain is also expected in national capital under influence of western disturbance from January 3 to January 5.

western disturbance will le to moderate swfall in western Himalayan region, IMD said.

In plains, IMD declares a cold wave if minimum temperature dips to 4 degrees Celsius. A severe cold wave is when minimum is 2 degrees Celsius or less.

A cold wave is also declared when minimum temperature is 10 degrees Celsius or below and is 4.5 tches less than rmal.

A "severe" cold wave is when minimum temperature dips to two degrees Celsius or departure is more than 6.4 degrees.

aver minimum temperature in Delhi in December was second-lowest in 15 years.

Data released by IMD on Thursday showed that mean minimum temperature (MMT) this December was 7.1 degrees Celsius. It was 7.6 degrees Celsius last year.