Bengaluru recorded one of its coldest mornings in over a decade on Christmas Day, as several parts of Karnataka came under the grip of a cold spell.
According to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, parts of Bengaluru Urban recorded a minimum temperature of 11.2°C, while the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported 13.4°C at Bengaluru airport.
The lowest temperature ever recorded in the city was 8.9°C in 1883. Since 2012, this was the second closest to that record, after Bengaluru registered a low of 12°C in December 2016.
In the state, the northern Bidar district registered a low of 6.5°C during the early hours of Thursday morning. KSNDMC data shows that 27 of the 31 districts registered minimum temperatures below 11°C. Bengaluru Urban and Davanagere (both with a minimum of 11.2°C), Udupi (16.6°C) and Dakshina Kannada (17.4°C) were the only four recording minimum temperatures above 11°C.
Meanwhile, there are indications of some let-up in the winter chill over the course of the week. The IMD’s extended range forecast models indicate that between December 26 and January 1, minimum temperature anomalies will be around 0 to 2 degrees below normal, compared to the up to 5 degrees below normal recorded a week earlier, between December 19 and 25.
Earlier, the IMD had predicted minimum temperatures to be normal or below normal in many parts of the country, including peninsular India.