Chill out: At 19.5°C, Bengaluru records one of the coldest days in a decade

Bengalureans had braced themselves for a sweltering hot summer in May. Instead, over the past few days, mercury levels dropped drastically and the city has experienced rainy, chilly weather prompting residents to pull out their winter wear.

In fact, Wednesday, May 11, happened to be one of the coldest days the city had seen in the past ten years, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD). This unusually chilly weather in May is incidentally due to cyclone Asani, which made landfall on the Andhra Pradesh coast late on Wednesday.

According to the IMD, May 11 was the coldest day since 2012, with a minimum temperature of 19.5°C and maximum temperature of 24°C. In recent history, the coldest in Bengaluru was on May 14, 1972, when the highest temperature recorded was 22.2°C.

However, as per IMD’s bulletin at 18.08 pm, on Thursday (May 12), Bengaluru city saw a maximum temperature of a further drop to 23°C and minimum temperature of 19.5°C.

Also read: Cyclone Asani brings some relief, but heat wave returns with vengeance

At at the Kempegowda International Airport, the IMD recorded a maximum temperature of 26.3°C and a minimum temperature of 20°C. The weather station at the HAL airport recorded the lowest temperature at 20.1°C, while the maximum temperature was 26.3°C.

In 2021, the lowest temperature recorded in the city in May was 20.4°C, while in 2020, mercury dipped to about 20.2°C, the IMD said. The weather forecast for today is generally cloudy sky with one or two spells of rain or thundershowers and this is expected to continue for the next 48 hours.

Meanwhile, cyclonic storm Asani made landfall between Machilipatnam and Narsapuram in Andhra Pradesh late on Wednesday night, May 11. It weakened into a deep depression, even as it was expected not to make a landfall. Asani continued to move towards the Andhra coast on Wednesday and changed course unexpectedly.