Sanjeev Kumar Patro

Bhubaneswar: Stock up your woollens, more harsh winter is in the offing this new year.

Even as the cold wave sweeping Odisha since December 18 will lose its chill across the State by this weekend, the IMD’s winter outlook for the New Year, however, has literally sent the chill down the spine.

Odisha is going to witness an intense chilly January in the new year. And the forecast is the spell of the chill will be for a longer duration vis-à-vis the span of the cold wave condition in December 2020.

As per the updated IMD weather model, Odisha will witness a significant drop in the minimum temperature from the first day of the New Year. As a result the cold wave like conditions in the State will prevail till the middle of January.

[caption id="attachment_503666" align="alignnone" width="750"] Cold Wave -2.0[/caption]

A cursory glance at detailed forecast reveals that districts like Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Deogarh, Sonepur, Nuapada will have the mercury plummeting to around 7-10 degree Celsius. In contrast, the rest of the districts in the State, including the coastal ones, are likely to record a minimum temperature in the range of 10-13 deg C.  As per the IMD model forecast, the spell of the cold condition in the new year is predicted to last till January 14.

[caption id="attachment_503667" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Frost layer in Daringbadi on Wednesday[/caption]

History Of Cold Waves In Odisha       

An analysis of cold waves in Odisha since year 2010 reveals that Odisha witnessed two cold waves in as many as 7 years (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019). In the rest of the years (2010, 2013 and 2017), the State had recorded only one cold wave spell. The cold wave duration in Odisha is between Dec 15 – Jan 30, except in 2014 when the State saw cold wave in December and February. The year 2012 saw the longest cold wave spell of 12 days in two phases in Odisha.

Cold Wave in 2020

As per the IMD forecast, the first phase of cold wave in Odisha that started from Dec 19 will last till Dec 24. And the long range IMD model predicts the second phase of cold/severe cold wave will sweep Odisha from around Jan 6 to Jan 12.

Odisha Winter 2020 Forecast

Winter in Odisha set in December and will continue till February. The State had even witnessed cold wave in the month of February in 2014. Will Odisha see a redux this February?

The country’s premiere weather forecasting agency, the IMD, has predicted that the winter in Odisha will be cooler this year than the normal winter temperature in the State. The forecast for Dec-Jan-Feb is that the mean minimum temperature anomaly during winter in Odisha will be 0.21 deg C below normal mean winter temperature for the period of Dec-Jan-Feb.

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