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Cold wave conditions have arrived in North-West India as west Rajasthan, Haryana and Chandigarh came to grips with the winter chill only by the middle of December, later than usual.
This also marks the beginning of the crucial one-month period when occurrence of fog to dense fog conditions hits vehicular, train and air traffic over North, North-West and East India.
Western disturbanceThe cold spells and the fog episodes alternate with the arrival and departure of western disturbances, which are the major weather-making systems during winter in the region.
Overall, they bring the cold Arctic air into play over the region to herald winter, but also pick up moisture along the way, and closest from the North-East Arabian Sea.
The moisture gets converted in the hills of the North-West India as snow and heavy rain while over the plain it falls as thundershowers, which aids the standing crop.
The moisture warms up the atmosphere thanks to the process of convection (cloud-building), causing minimum temperatures (night temperatures) to perk up.
In this manner, western disturbances also help break the biting cold events.
Dense fogAn India Met Department update on Monday said that dense fog has been observed during the morning hours over Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and the entire North-East India.
This represents a phase in which a passing western disturbance may have left North-West India to the East. As if on cue, minimum temperatures fell below normal by 2 degree Celsius to 5 degree Celsius at most places over Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and east Rajasthan and at a few places over Saurashtra and Kutch, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat.
A feeble western disturbance is waiting to cross over into North-West India in the next few days which may help bring up the night temperatures over the North-West.
Cold to persistForecast valid for Tuesday said that cold wave conditions would prevail over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and East Rajasthan.
Dense fog would continue to hang over Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
The weather over South India, especially over Tamil Nadu that witnessed the North-East monsoon reach a peak during late November and early December, has more or settled.
Only isolated rain events in hills have been reported during the 24 hours ending on Monday morning.
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