Rajasthan: Cold bites back with a vengeance

For the past few days, cold wave like conditions are prevailing over parts of the state and chilly mornings are keeping minimum temperature below normal by 4-5 degrees Celsius below the normal. In the wake of this, cold day conditions are also prevailing over most of the parts in the state and moderate to dense fog also occurred at isolated places in north Rajasthan.

As per local MeT office report, at Mount Abu, the only hill station in the state, mercury dropped by 4 degrees Celsius during last 24 hours and reached to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In plains, Bikaner was the coldest place where lowest minimum temperature in the state was recorded at 5 degrees. It was 4 degrees below normal notch. Churu, Chittorgarh, Ajmer and Jaislamer recorded minimum temperature at 5.5, 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 degrees Celsius. At other places night temperature remained below or around 8 degrees Celsius. The highest minimum temperature of 8.6 degrees Celsius was recorded in Phalodi.

As per weathermen, these drop in minimums can be attributed to the showers occurred at many places in the state couple of days ago. Post those rains, humid easterly winds changed their direction and are presently blowing from northerly or north-west direction. These winds are cold and dry in nature since they are coming from the Western Himalayas. The chilly winds have already started bringing down the minimums over the state. Light winds, drop in temperatures and availability of humidity in the atmosphere lead to the formation of fog.

MeT has issued warning that moderate to dense fog likely to occur at isolated places in the state during next 24 hours. Though, no warning for cold wave has been issued but nights will continue to be colder while day temperatures are likely to be increased during next 24 hours.