‘Mercury to go down by 3-4 degrees in next five days’

Kolkata: Mercury may go down by 3-4 degrees in the South Bengal districts in the next five days giving a sense of winter cold to the people. Several districts both in the North and South Bengal are expected to witness foggy mornings in the next couple of days, said the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.

The minimum temperature could drop in Kolkata by four degrees by Sunday, taking it below 20°C for the first time this season. The cool northwesterly wind, which is set to flow into Gangetic Bengal at multiple levels will bring down the temperature.

It could pull the mercury down to below 18°C in several South Bengal districts by the weekend, even as the southeasterly wind, which carries moisture from the sea and prevents a temperature drop, is cut off by a stronger northwesterly. Kolkata recorded a minimum temperature of 22.1°C on Thursday morning which was 1.8 degree above normal.

The MeT office said that visibility may touch 50 meter in some places of North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur in the early morning hours due to fog. There is a prediction of light rainfall in Darjeeling on Sunday.

The temperature in the western districts of Bengal is expected to go down by a few notches in the next couple of days. A low pressure that was situated over southwest Bay of Bengal and west central Bay of Bengal will gradually move towards the west and it will have an impact on Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.