By IANS
New Delhi : Delhiites can put paid to their hopes of warmer days as the weather office Sunday forecast some more sunny but very chilly days ahead in the capital.
The Indian Meteorological Department said the mercury in Delhi was likely to drop by half a degree Celsius Monday from Sunday’s minimum temperature of 5.5 degree – a whopping five degrees Celsius below what is normal for the city for this time of the season.
Weather officials pegged Sunday’s maximum temperature at 19.8 degrees Celsius, nearly three degrees below normal.
The continuing cold wave in the morning made the denizens of the capital to revise their weekend plans.
“I wanted to set out for the Surajkund Mela in Faridabad in the morning. But due to the extreme cold I could only manage to get out of my home by noon, when it was a little warm,” said Ritika Gupta, a resident of north Delhi.
Schoo-going children heaved a sigh of relief as it was Sunday and they did not need to brave the intense cold and freezing winds of the morning.
Ashish Kumar, a Class 8 student, said: “Thank god, it was a Sunday and I did not have to go through the morning drill of getting ready for school early. Instead, as the day got warmer my family and I went to the India Gate.”
The chilly weather, however, did not affect the air traffic, as the sky for most part of the day remained clear without any fog.
The met officials said the capital would experience “extremely chilly winds” Monday though the day will be “sunny with a clear sky”.
Monday is the day of the festival of Vasant Panchami, and Delhiites expect the winter to end soon after that. “Vasant Panchami heralds the coming of spring. So I am hopeful the cold wave would end soon,” Arti Shukla, a housewife, said.
The Met Office attributed the continued decline in temperatures to snowfall in the northern parts of the country.
The capital has been reeling under intense cold conditions since Jan 20 with the minimum and maximum temperatures hovering several notches below normal. Even February has been unusually cold compared to earlier years.