The Hindu Business Line : Fog alert in North; mercury seen rising

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Thiruvananthapuram Jan. 19 The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) has issued a fog alert for parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains for two to three days starting Saturday.

This will happen with the passage of a prevailing western disturbance to the east. Ongoing snowfall/rains over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal is likely to reduce within the next 24 hours, clearing the way for cold northwesterly winds. Night temperature will start to fall in tandem.

`Warm front'

But model predictions suggest that another western disturbance is likely to come over northwest India by Wednesday next, bringing cloudiness and associated wet weather to parts of the region. Mercury levels will go up due to convection activity associated with the `warm front' of the system.

Dr Akhilesh Gupta of the Department of Science and Technology said that this system is likely to ``create some weather'' in the form of light rain to northern parts of Rajasthan and adjoining Punjab as well as parts of western Haryana.

This will be good news for farmers, since they have hardly seen any precipitation during the ongoing western disturbance season. But the frequency of the western disturbance, the harbinger of winter weather, has been normal.

No drastic change

Dr Gupta did not see any particular reason why mercury levels should not behave through the season until February-end, which is crucial for the growth phase of the standing wheat crop. Maximum day temperatures should keep ideally within 35 degree Celsius, at least until March.

The mean daily maximum for Delhi is 30.0 degree Celsius for March, which shoots up to 36.2 degree Celsius in April. The mean daily maximum for February is 21.6 degree Celsius and mean daily minimum 15.4 degree Celsius. This means that temperature must keep within below 30 degree Celsius until March (32.2 degree Celsius in Lucknow and 28.4 degree Celsius in Chandigarh).

Overall, deviation from the normal has been contained in the plus-or-minus 2-degree-Celcius range so far, which is perfectly normal, with exceptions being western Rajasthan (up to 4 degree Celsius above normal) and places in the North-East (below 2 degree Celsius).

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