Winter arrives early this year

hyderabad: the winter this year has made an early start in the state. officially, the season arrives mid-november. meteorogically, the cold-season begins in december and stretches over january to early february. this time you could say it arrived a little early,'' c v v bhadram, the director of the meteorology department here said. the lowest temperatures are recorded between mid-december and early january, he added.among the larger cities in india, hyderabad might rank third in winter temperatures after delhi and kolkata, bhadram said. however, the department has no means to study whether pollution levels have brought about a change in temperatures in different parts of the city. in order to record locality temperatures, the department needs a mobile observatory and other microclimatology equipment. it would be interesting to compare the change in temperature in rajendranagar, which has a lot of greenery, and abids which has a high vehicle-density,'' he said. winter temperatures recorded in andhra pradesh so far have been consistent with the average weekly temperature of 14 degree centigrade. the least temperature recorded in ap this year was 12.8 degrees at nizamabad on sunday. according to bhadram, the average temperature of 14 degrees has been calculated after analysing data recorded for more than 30 years. citing technical incapabilities, bhadram said, the department cannot forecast how harsh the winter this year would be. he said the coastal areas comprising nine districts remain the warmest sector in the state. the temperature in these districts have ranged between 16 and 22 degrees, he said.according to bhadram, the reason for coastal areas being warmer during winter is the high moisture content in these areas. this is called the maritime effect,'' he explained.