Early-season chill linked to northerly winds, but IMD says minimum temperatures likely to rise above 20°C in coming days

Mumbai logged its coldest November morning in at least ten years on Wednesday, with the minimum temperature at the Santacruz observatory dipping to 16.2 degrees Celsius, around five degrees below normal for the season.

While the suburbs shivered, the Colaba coastal observatory in south Mumbai recorded a milder 21.6 degrees Celsius, underscoring the contrast between inland and coastal parts of the city.

Data show that this is the lowest November minimum in at least a decade. The previous lowest in this period was 16.3 degrees Celsius, recorded on 11 November 2016. The only other occasion in the past ten years when minimum temperatures hovered near 16 degrees was in 2024, when the mercury dipped to 16.5 degrees Celsius. The all-time November record for Mumbai remains 13.3 degrees, set in 1950.

Meteorologists at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) have linked the ongoing spell of unusually cool nights to a sustained flow of cold northerly and north-easterly winds across central and peninsular India, which has spilled over into the Konkan coast. They noted that the city has been in the grip of an early-season chill since 9 November, when minimum temperatures first fell below 20 degrees this season and have since stayed below normal.

However, IMD scientists underlined that, climatologically, winter for Mumbai is still some distance away, as the department defines January and February as the core winter months. In its latest bulletin, the weather bureau has forecast a gradual rise in night-time temperatures, with the minimum expected to climb back above 20 degrees Celsius over the next few days.

This week’s record-breaking minimum follows an earlier temperature anomaly at the start of the month, when Mumbai registered its lowest November daytime maximum in a decade. On 2 November, the maximum temperature fell to 27 degrees Celsius, a drop attributed then to unseasonal showers in the region. By contrast, the current cool conditions are being driven by dry, continental air rather than rainfall, highlighting the interplay of different weather systems shaping the city’s November climate.