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A warm week promises to end on a cool note with the minimum temperature expected to drop more than four notches.
The morning showed the day with a cool breeze blowing and the maximum temperature dipping by 3.9 degrees Celsius in 24 hours to touch 30.9 on Friday.
“The sun has been scorching in the mornings and afternoons for the last few days but on Friday morning there was a breeze to go with the sun, which made things much more comfortable,” said Jamuna Wadekar, 24, a resident of Lake Gardens.
The minimum temperature before sunrise on Friday was 20.5 degrees, the highest since November but the breeze had a cooling effect.
G.C. Debnath, director, India Meteorological Department, Calcutta, attributed the fall in temperature to the northerly wind, which brings the cold to Calcutta, picking up once more. “The cool wind is likely to continue for a couple of days,” he said. The maximum is expected to drop to 30 degrees Celsius on Saturday while the minimum is likely to touch 17 degrees, three less than normal at this time of the year.
By Sunday, the minimum temperature is expected to dip further, to 16 degrees Celsius, which is the normal minimum in the city in mid-January.
Weather scientists at IMD, Delhi, said Jammu and Kashmir has experienced snowfall and this has led to the northerly wind blowing in.
The other factor behind the chill making a brief comeback is a receding western disturbance, which also helped the flow of the wind.
“Western disturbances come in the way of the flow of the northerly wind, leading to a rise in temperature. But when the system is receding, a high-pressure belt is created, which actually accelerates the flow of the wind,” said a senior IMD official.
One such high-pressure belt will stay active for the next couple of days and the northerly wind will keeping blowing in. Another western disturbance is expected to hit Kashmir on Monday and temperatures may drop once again, though briefly, when it recedes.
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