Mercury on upward trend, IMD issues yellow alert for rain today

A western disturbance currently active in the Himalayan region led to a warm Monday in Delhi, with the maximum and minimum both logging a slight uptick in comparison to the previous day. This weather condition is likely to bring precipitation and gusty wind to the Capital on Tuesday, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issuing a yellow alert for light rain in the city.
Delhi’s minimum continued in an upward trend on Monday, rising to 6.8 degrees Celsius (°C) from the 4.3°C on Saturday and 6.0°C on Sunday. The minimum is predicted to rise further over the next few days, forecast to touch 8°C on Tuesday and 10°C on Wednesday.
Kuldeep Srivastava, scientist at IMD, said the trend of rising minimum temperature is expected to continue till the month end. “A western disturbance around Jammu and Kashmir is currently influencing parts of the plains and leading to cloudiness. This has led to an increase in minimum temperature as well as a change in wind direction to easterly winds,” he said.
“We expect a stronger western disturbance to impact the plains from December 31. This will bring drizzle to very light rain in NCR, with strong winds touching up to 40 kmph,” he said.
READ | Drizzle or light rain expected in Delhi this week; minimum temperature up
IMD said that parts of Delhi are likely to record drizzle on February 1.
The maximum, meanwhile, was 22.6°C on Monday — a degree above normal, and four notches higher than Sunday’s maximum of 18.6, though this was lower than the balmy 24°C logged on Saturday. The maximum is forecast to hover between 21 and 22°C over the next two days, IMD said.
Across NCR, Gurugram recorded a maximum and minimum of 21.3°C and 8.5°C respectively. Noida meanwhile had a high and low of 21.8°C and 8.4°C respectively.
The Met department said shallow fog was recorded on Monday, with the lowest visibility recorded at 700 metres in the early hours of the day. There was limited impact on flights at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport. However, at least 24 trains were delayed by at least an hour, due to the fog, Railway officials said.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s pollution levels remained in the “very poor” zone, with a 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) of 356 at 4 pm, marginally better than the 365 a day earlier. However, the AQI is forecast to touch “severe” on Tuesday.
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) said it held an emergency meeting on Monday but decided to not invoke stage 3 measures under the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap), due to the possible improvement in air quality expected from Wednesday.
“The CAQM sub-committee noted that a spurt in Delhi’s average AQI, projected for Tuesday by the IMD and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is likely for a short duration, before returning to the ‘very Poor’ category owing to improved meteorological conditions including gusty winds with a probability of rain. Further, the overall outlook for subsequent days projects Delhi’s average AQI to stay in ‘poor’ or the ‘very poor’ category. Therefore….it was decided not to invoke Stage-3 of GRAP at this stage,” said CAQM in a statement on Monday.