Bhubaneswar: Just a day after experiencing its coldest January night in 23 years, the minimum temperature in the state capital climbed sharply by 6.5°C in the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Sunday.
Bhubaneswar recorded a low of 15.7°C largely due to the influence of cloudy skies, according to senior meteorologist Umasankar Das.
The city had witnessed intense chill in the preceding days with temperatures dipping as low as 9.2°C on January 10. The mercury had plunged to 10.2°C in the city on January 7 and 9.4°C during the two subsequent days.
A similar trend compared to the recent cold spell was also seen in other places in the state, with Rourkela recording 8°C, followed by Jharsuguda at 8.3°C, Keonjhar at 12.6°C, Sambalpur at 12.7°C, Hirakud at 13.9°C, Balasore at 15.2°C, Chandbali at 15.3°C, Paradip at 15.5°C, Gopalpur at 17.7°C and Puri at 18.4°C.
On January 9 morning, Rourkela at 3.6°C was the fourth coldest city in the plains across the country, after Pantnagar in Uttarakhand, which recorded 2.5°C, Daltonganj in Jharkhand 3.2°C and Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh 3.4°C. Similarly, Jharsuguda recorded 4.6°C, below normal by 7.2°C, Angul 7°C (-6.8 deg C) and Cuttack 8.6°C.
Roukela recorded a minimum temperature of 4.1°C during the next 24 hours. Jharsuguda followed closely at 4.5°C, while Phulbani and Angul recorded 6°C each. While mercury dipped to 9.2°C in Bhubaneswar, its lowest in over two decades, the millennium city of Cuttack also experienced severe cold at 9°C.
Sarat Sahu, former director of regional IMD centre, described that the cold wave as unusual and attributed it to a low pressure system left stationary over the Bay of Bengal near the Tamil Nadu coast for 3 to 4 days. It influenced continuous inflow of dry and cold north Katabatic wind from the Himalayan foothills region towards Odisha, leading to a significant and noticeable drop in temperatures across the state, he said, adding that the system is expected to move across the Sri Lanka coast as a depression, which should alter the wind patterns and result in a gradual rise in temperature.
The IMD had also forecast a rise in the night temperature by 2-3°C during the next 2 days with no large change thereafter.
