Delhiites battle icy winds on a sunny Monday

New Delhi: The sun shone bright in the national capital on Monday but icy winds blowing at a velocity of 16 km per hour along with a dip in mercury levels made it a chilly day.

Delhi was back in the grip of the winter chill after a brief spell of warm weather as the temperatures during the dark hours slipped to 7.5 degree Celsius early on Monday morning from nine degrees the previous day.

Monday’s minimum is normal for this time of the year while the maximum had dropped to 18.2 degrees Celsius yesterday from 21.3 degrees.

"The windspeed was today measured between 13-16 km per hour. For the past couple of days, the city is experiencing icy winds. The city experienced chilly weather despite the mercury remaining at above normal level," a senior MeT official said.

The mercury had risen to 24.3 degree Celsius last week.

The Met has predicted that icy winds will continue to blow over the city on Tuesday as well and the mercury is likely to be between 8 and 19 degrees Celsius. The Weatherman has also warned about the possibility of fog tomorrow.

The weatherman had earlier said that warm weather conditions would be short-lived, and mercury could dip over the weekend following snowfall in the Himalayan region and rains in the foothills.

The piercing chill and icy winds that had persisted for several days cleared away on Monday when the maximum temperature rose to 19.2 degrees Celsius, after keeping below 15 degrees for almost a week.

Low temperatures coupled with icy winds from the northern mountains had made life difficult for the people for some days. The capital has recorded at least five cold-related deaths since December 26.

According to MeT statistics, the record for the highest maximum for the month of January was 32.5 degrees Celsius recorded on the 28th of 2004. The record minimum is -0.6 deg C recorded on 16th of the month in 1935.

The capital recorded the coldest day for the past 42 years on last Sunday when the maximum temperature dropped to 11 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees below normal.

In the last decade, only last year the minimum did not drop below five degrees Celsius. In 2006, the minimum dropped to 0.2 degrees on January 8 while two years later, the lowest minimum was 1.9 degrees on 2nd of the month.