 | | This little moppet wrapped in mommy's shawl during a day out with her family in front of Victoria Memorial was among the many who didn't seem prepared for such a strong comeback by the North Wind after a fortnight's sabbatical. Picture by Pradip Sanyal |
Winter has found its second wind, bringing back with it blue skies, bright sunshine and, brrr, that chill-laden breeze! The emancipation of Calcutta's winter after a fortnight of atmospheric repression comes with the renewed promise of a sub-10 Celsius reading over the next few days, which to many in the city is the equivalent of a sub-zero in the snow zone. Thursday's minimum of 11.4 degrees on the Celsius scale was three notches below normal, enough to bring the monkey caps out of premature retirement. The heavy woollens hidden in the wardrobe since your last holiday in the hills could be next. "Temperatures are set to slide further. There is a warning for a cold wave in south Bengal, including Calcutta, in the next 48 hours," said Gokul Chandra Debnath, the director of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore. In 24 hours since Wednesday afternoon, the minimum temperature has dropped over five degrees. And the forecast of a further drop has got winter-starved Calcuttans, including actress Rituparna Sengupta, excited. "Temperatures will dip further? That's great news! It just didn't seem like winter until Thursday. I will take out all my woollies and flaunt them before the chill is gone again," she told Metro. So how was she planning to celebrate winter's comeback? "With a barbecue on my terrace!" pat came the reply from the Tolly topper. For actor Dev, there's a bit of both good and bad news blowing in the North Wind. "The chill is back and how! It's a great time to have long addas with friends over hot cups of coffee and pakoras! But, sadly, this also means that the night shows of my film (Khokababu, which releases on Friday) will go empty. People generally don't like to step out at night in this chill," he said. The forecast is for the chill to stay at least until Sunday, the day after Makar Sankranti. The comeback trail of the chill began on Wednesday evening. People on the way back home from office were caught off guard as most of them hadn't bothered to carry anything more than a light jacket, shawl or pullover. "I was wearing a pair of jeans and the wind cut right through the fabric. I had a windcheater on but it hardly made a difference," said Rajib Das, returning to his Howrah home from Sector V. Ranjit K. Ghosh, 70, from Mukundapur, took his routine morning walk on Thursday an hour and a half late. "It was so difficult to leave the bed because of the cold. I get up around 6.30am; today I allowed myself an extra 90 minutes," he smiled. Officials of the India Meteorological Department said temperatures in localities with open spaces were up to two degrees below that recorded in Alipore. Debnath said the chill in the air was because of the unhindered passage of the northerlies. "A clear day always favours the free flow of the North Wind, accentuating the chill," he explained. As of now, there is no low-pressure system on the radar to influence the influx of moisture into the atmosphere and spoil the city's promised date with a sub-10 reading. The last instance of sub-10 temperatures in the city was on January 11 and 12 last year, when the Celsius had dropped to 9.9 and then 9.6 degrees. This season, the lowest temperature recorded was 10.8 degrees Celsius on December 23. | 
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