At 6.5°C, Chintapalle in Andhra Pradesh records lowest temperature of season on Sunday

Visakhapatnam: On Sunday morning, people and tourists woke up to a nip in the air as Chintapalle and surrounding areas in Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district recorded its lowest temperature of the season with a minimum temperature of 6.5 degrees Celsius.

The people in Lammasingi (popular as Andhra’s Kashmir) in the ASR district felt that the mercury levels dipped to below 5°C. Chintapalle recorded 8°C on Saturday (January 6, 2024) and 7°C on December 21, 2023.

It may be recalled that on January 8, 2023, Chintapalle recorded the lowest temperature 1.5°C of the season as per the Regional Agriculture Research Station (RARS), the primary weather station in the ASR district. Thin ice sheets were seen on grasslands and vehicles parked in the open places by the visitors in a few parts of ASR in the morning hours.

Three decades of cold

Nearly three decades ago, on January 6, 1992, due to a local weather condition, the temperature of Chintapalle dropped to 0°C; it was the lowest temperature recorded at Chintapalle in 30 years.

Lammasingi, a tiny tribal hamlet under Chintapalle mandal in ASR district, is famed for being called the Kashmir Valley of Andhra Pradesh, caught the attention of tourists for bone biting chill, with temperatures lower than Chintapalle, and dense fog weather conditions.

The temperatures at Lammasingi are just guesstimated – estimated based on a mixture of guesswork and calculation – as there is no weather station or any observatory. The temperature of Lammasingi is estimated to be around 1°C below that recorded at RARS Chintapalle.

Rest of AP to get chills soon

Chintapalli is in the Eastern Ghats and is 839 m above sea level on average (2,755 feet). It is 132 km from Vizag city and 20 km from Lammasingi. Chintapalli is also home to the Eastern Ghats’ highest point where high-altitude atmospheric air has low water vapour holding capacity.

According to IMD (India Meteorological Department) in Amaravati, the mercury levels will dip further in parts of Andhra Pradesh in the coming days. The foggy weather conditions in the morning hours may affect vehicular traffic in parts of the state.

With the mercury levels dipping for the past few days, the inflow of tourists to Lammasingi has increased. On Sunday, thousands of tourists came to Lammasingi to witness the foggy and cool weather conditions, said K Raghunath, a resident of Lammasingi.