Rain, thunderstorms likely to hit Delhi on Wednesday; cold wave conditions expected to abate

New Delhi: Delhi and its surrounding regions have been witnessing minimum temperatures hovering around 5 degrees Celsius which is against the normal of 8 degrees Celcius of the past two days. Such weather conditions are expected to last for another 24 hours, said Skymet, a private weather forecasting agency.The national capital is expected to receive moderate rainfall accompanied by a thunderstorm on Wednesday resulting in an increase in humidity with minimum temperature marginally increasing.On Thursday, the minimum temperatures can oscillate between 8 degrees Celsius to 9 degrees Celsius and eventually they could witness a rising trend, thus abating the cold wave condition over the region.[caption id="attachment_5983731" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational image. ANI[/caption]At present, the minimum and maximum temperatures of Delhi are hovering at 6 degrees Celsius and 19 degrees Celsius. The air quality remains in the ‘poor’ category with overall AQI docking at 245 in the morning.Due to biting cold and pollution, the homeless residing in the national capital are forced to move into shelters set by the Delhi government. At present, there are reportedly at least 248-night shelters across the national capital. Out of these, 83 operate out of permanent buildings, 115 from porta-cabins while 50 runs from European style fireproof tents.The moderate wind speed is preventing the pollution to cross to the next level (very poor). Cold wave conditions and moderate fog are likely to prevail for the next two days. Hence, air quality is predicted to deteriorate slightly but will fluctuate between ‘very poor' and ‘poor’ for the next three days, the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR) said.According to the latest report by the Indian Railways, as many as 16 trains were rescheduled after getting delayed for at least by an hour. On a closer look, the mercury in Delhi and its adjoining areas have plummeted due to the cold wave conditions being active across the three states of Jammu-Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.For the entire month of January, Srinagar temperatures have remained in the sub-zero category, barring 3 January when it was recorded at 0.2 degrees Celsius. Many popular hilly stations like that of Shimla, Dalhousie are observing sub-zero temperatures.In the last 24 hours, Keylong in Himachal observed minimum temperatures at -17 degrees Celsius (seven degrees below normal) and day temperatures were at -5.2 degrees Celsius (five degrees below normal).The hilly destination of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh is at 12 degrees Celsius (ten degrees below normal), Mukteshwar in Uttarakhand is at 4.6 degrees Celsius (eight degrees below normal), Srinagar recorded -3.5 degrees Celsius (departure from normal -3 degrees Celsius) while Pahalgam recorded -14 degrees Celsius which is unusual by -7 degrees Celsius.