BAGUIO CITY – The temperature in this mountain city sharply dropped to its lowest at 12 degrees Celsius on Tuesday from 13.2 on Monday.
The drop at 5 a.m. was normal as Baguio usually gets its coldest mornings between January and February, according to Efren Dalipog, weather observer of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration here.
But it was colder in Mt. Sto. Tomas, in Tuba, Benguet at 2,260 meters above sea level, where the temperature dropped to 9 degrees, Dalipog noted.
The cold spell is triggered by the northeast monsoon locally known as hanging amihan.
Residents and tourists were advised to whip out their warmest clothes as the mercury was still expected to drop in the coming weeks.
The lowest temperature here in 2018 was 11.2 degrees Celsius recorded on March 11.
In 2017, the mercury dropped to 7.3 degrees on Feb. 14, still far from the 6.3 degrees recorded on Jan. 18, 1961./lzb