At Calcutta zoo on a wintry Friday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta was chilly on Friday but was spared the cold wave that the Met office had predicted a day before.

“The minimum temperature is likely to drop further on Saturday and the ‘cold condition’ will continue till Sunday,” said G.C. Debnath, the director of the weather section at Regional Meteorological Centre, Alipore.

The minimum temperature on Friday was 12.6 degrees Celsius, two degrees below normal and marginally less than Thursday’s. In meteorological parlance, a “cold wave” prevails when the minimum temperature dips five degrees or more below normal.

The maximum temperature on Friday was 22 degrees, 3.3 degrees above Thursday’s.

“The minimum temperature did not drop much as the North Wind has become weak, following an approaching western disturbance from the north-western parts of the country. But the warning for a cold wave will stay for the next 24 hours,” said Debnath.

Parts of north Bengal, along with Bihar and Jharkhand, were in the grip of a cold wave on Friday, said an official of the weather department. “A cold wave is also sweeping the whole of north India.”