KATHMANDU, Dec 30: The weather temperature has plunged to 5.5 degree Celsius in the Kathmandu Valley on Friday morning, prompting general people to huddle around the heater.
The weather temperature was recorded even lower to 4.6 degree Celsius yesterday.
According to Samir Shrestha, a meteorologist at Meteorological Forecasting Division, Gaucharan, Kathmandu, the temperature dipped below 5 degree Celsius yesterday due to dense fog that covered the city for hours. “The longer the fog remains in the air, the colder the weather will be as it will block the sunlight from coming into the earth,” Shrestha told Republica Online.
The weather temperature increased to 5.5 (minimum) from 4.6 degree Celsius as the fog lifted shortly after the sunshine.
According to Meteorological Forecasting Division, Gaucharan, Kathmandu, the weather temperature was recorded at 4.8 the day before yesterday while it was at 5.2 three days ago.
It is likely that the weather temperature will remain above 0 degree Celsius this year, according to Shrestha.
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The winter rainfall in the far-western, mid-western and western regions also led to a low temperature yesterday (4.6). The temperature was recorded to a month low to 4.4 degree Celsius on December 9.
There was 0.7 mm rainfall recorded in Dipayal on December 26, 4 mm rainfall in Birendranagar on December 19 and 2 mm in Simara on December 27. Besides, there was snowfall in hilly regions.
According to Shrestha, the weather temperature is likely to dip below 4.6 degree Celsius in the coming month January. Shrestha further said that the temperature will rise gradually from February.
Around this time last year (on December 24) the weather temperature was recorded at 0 degree Celsius while it was at 1.7 degree Celsisus on December 12, 2014.
January 23 will be recorded as the coldest day of the year 2016 with weather temperature record at 2.2 degree Celsius if the temperature will not go down below this tomorrow.
Based on the data above, the weather temperature, this year, has increased compared to last year. However, Shrestha does not attribute this slight rise in temperature to global warming but to dense fog, winter rainfall and snowfall that occurred over the last few days.
The global warming is determined based on the analysis of the data recorded over the past 30 years, Shrestha said.
