Karnataka - Bangalore   

Of mercury dips and chapped lips

— FILE PHOTO

TIME TO BRING OUT YOUR WARM CLOTHING: The mercury unexpectedly dropped to 12.7 degrees Celsius on Thursday.

Bangalore: As Bangalore toasts under rising temperatures with the cityscape changing irreversibly, the last thing residents would imagine they would have to brace themselves against is an unnaturally cold spell, that too before winter has set in.

Yet residents were caught rather off guard on Thursday when the mercury unexpectedly dropped to 12.7 degrees Celsius — making it the coldest November night the city has seen in 16 years.

“The mean minimum temperature for November is 17.2 degrees Celsius. The kind of cold weather we saw on Thursday was last reached in November 1991, when temperatures dropped to 12.2 degrees Celsius,” said an officer at the Meteorological Centre here. In fact, at 12.7 degrees Celsius, the temperature fell lower than the mean minimum for January (15.1 degrees Celsius), the coldest month in the year in the city.

However, this cannot be interpreted as a trend in early winters, says G.S. Bhatt, Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science.

“This cold spell is an isolated event and can be attributed to the cyclone Sidr over the Bay of Bengal, which has created a green house effect, causing a subsidence of air over the peninsula,” he said.

“Moderate cold wave” conditions will continue in interior Karnataka, including Bangalore, for another day.

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