Bhubaneswar: The mercury is likely to fall again in Odisha by 2-3°C during the next 3 days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) informed on Sunday.
However, no cold wave warning has been issued for the state during the next seven days.
Odisha had witnessed an unusual cold wave with temperature plummeting to around 2°C, due to a stationary low-pressure system that lingered over the Bay of Bengal, near the Tamil Nadu coast, for 3 to 4 days. This led to a steady inflow of dry, cold northerly katabatic winds originating from the Himalayan foothills region towards the state. However, the mercury levels rose in the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Sunday as the system area over south coastal Tamil Nadu and adjoining Gulf of Mannar became less marked.
Bhubaneswar recorded 15.7°C, a sharp climb of 6.5°C since the previous day, under the influence of cloudy skies. The state capital had witnessed intense chill in the preceding days with the minimum temperature dipping as low as 9.2°C on January 10 morning, making it the coldest night in 22 years. The mercury had plunged to 10.2°C in the city on January 7 and 9.4°C during the two subsequent days.
Similarly, the minimum temperature rose to 14.4 in its twin city Cuttack, which experienced its coldest night in the past 40 years on January 9 morning at 8.6°C. The Millennium City recorded 9°C the previous day.
A similar trend compared to the recent cold spell was also seen in other places in the state with Daringbadi being the coldest in the state at 6.5°C, followed by Phulbani at 7°C, Rourkela at 8°C, Jharsuguda at 8.3°C, Nabarangpur at 8.5°C, G Udayagiri at 9.4°C, Kirei in Sundargarh at 9.8°C, Angul at 10°C, Keonjhar at 12.6°C, Sambalpur at 12.7°C, Hirakud at 13.9°C, Balasore at 15.2°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 and Angul 7°C (-6.8 deg 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.
