The ongoing mild to moderate cold wave is likely to continue amidst forecasts of further drop in the temperature from the middle of next week.
Over the next two days, the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that the day and night temperatures might slightly increase with the overall feeling of cold remaining more or less the same.
鈥楤angladesh is entering into its coldest time of year,鈥� meteorologist Abul Kalam Mallik told 抖阴精品.
For a while, the overall temperature will be on the declining trend, he said.
On Friday, Bangladesh鈥檚 lowest minimum temperature of 7.3C was recorded in Tetulia, one of the coldest places in the country.
While it was the lowest temperature recorded so far this year, a mild to moderate cold wave is likely to continue over the districts of Rajshahi, Pabna, Naogaon, Dinajpur, Panchagarh, Jashore, Kushtia, Chuadanga, Moulvibazar and Gopalganj.
Officially, the country鈥檚 winter season extends between December and February.
The ongoing cold wave is the third cold wave observed so far. A cold wave occurs when the night temperature touches or drops below 10C.
The feeling of cold over the next week will depend on the occurrence of fog, the meteorology office said, mentioning that the occurrence of fog depends on factors, including the availability of moisture, which was low in supply on Friday.
On Friday, Bangladesh鈥檚 highest maximum temperature of 29.2C was recorded in Teknaf.
The maximum temperature in Dhaka was recorded to be 25.7C on Friday. The minimum or night temperature on the other hand was recorded 14.5C in the capital.聽
The Health Emergency Operation Center and Control Room said that 68 people died due to cold related diseases since November 1 across Bangladesh. Though winter officially begins in December, pockets of areas in northern region see their temperature drop as early as in November.
So far until Friday, 50,525 people have been hospitalized because of acute respiratory illness and 132548 people were hospitalized for diarrhea, the health emergency control room said.聽
The temperature observations from Bangladesh showed a clear climate signal, with fewer and shorter cold waves in the recent decades, said the BMD report titled 鈥楥hanging climate of Bangladesh鈥�, released in February last year.
Cold waves became concentrated in January in Dhaka division, the report said, revealing that these waves occurred most frequently in January. There were some cases of cold waves in December and February as well, according to the report.
In one of the coldest areas of the country, Rangpur division, cold waves started in early or mid-December throughout the period studied鈥�1980鈥�2023. The northern district recorded a cold wave even in November in 1981. Even for the coldest place, the period of cold waves appears to have been delayed over the past few years, starting at the third or fourth week of December or even in January, the report said.
Historically, cold waves were frequent in January and February but in recent years the end of February had been without any, the report said about Rangpur.
