By Purushottam P. Khatri
Kathmandu, Dec. 28: Over the last seven years, minimum temperature in the Kathmandu Valley during the winter season was found plummeting year after year, according to the records of Meteorological Forecasting Division (MFD), Babarmahal.
Winter in Nepal normally begins from the first week of December and lasts until mid-February.
The lowest temperature for the month of December in Kathmandu was recorded 1.3 degrees Celsius on December 26.
The lowest temperature for this season in Kathmandu is yet to be marked as the shivering cold is yet to arrive in the month of January.
The lowest temperature for Kathmandu was measured at 2.3 degrees Celsius this morning at 8:45 am.
Within next two weeks, Kathmandu’s minimum temperature may go further down to minus level when the probability of winter rains increases. In that case, the valley’s minimum temperature may further plummet, Aryal said.
According to Meteorological Forecasting Division (MFD) under the DHM, the average minimum temperature of Kathmandu for the month of December usually remains 3.7 degrees Celsius.
Last year, on Wednesday (December 25), Kathmandu had recorded the lowest minimum temperature of 0.9 degrees Celsius.
Subash Rimal, senior meteorologist at DHM, said that the lowest-ever temperature recorded in Kathmandu was minus 3.5 degrees Celsius in 1978. The second lowest was minus 3 in 2000.
Senior Meteorologist Min Kumar Aryal talking to The Rising Nepal on Sunday said that in 2018 Kathmandu’s minimum temperature was recorded at 0.0 degree Celsius on January 7.
When looking at Kathmandu’s minimum temperature in December months from 2014 to 2020, the records show the minimum temperatures went down in every winter season.
According to the MFD’s records, in 2014, the minimum temperature of Kathmandu was 1.7 degrees Celsius on

December 12, 0.2 on December 26 in 2015, and 2.2 in December 23 in 2016.
Also, in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, the lowest minimum temperatures were recorded at 0.4 on January 14, 0.0 on January 7, and 0.5 on December 25, respectively.
Except for the year 2016, all other years the minimum temperature was recorded at almost one or zero degree Celsius.
Meteorologist Aryal said the intensity of cold in Kathmandu is increasing due to the effect of jet streams, the fast-flowing narrow and meandering air current in the atmosphere, that can be found just up to 15-16 kilometres of the atmosphere.
The second reason behind increasing severe cold in Kathmandu is wind that blows from north-western region of Nepal developed from the Mediterranean Sea that touches Jammu-Kashmir, Himanchal State of India and the third was the seasonal cause that happens normally after winter rains. Retired senior meteorologist Rajendra Kumar Shrestha of MFD said Kathmandu’s minimum temperature for the past several years had been showing some fluctuations due to gradual changes in the climatic condition of the country.