HOLIDAY ESCAPADE: Visitors enjoy biking at Burnham Park, one of the popular tourist spots in Baguio City, late afternoon on Dec. 30, 2021. The summer capital continues to experience nippy weather due to the prevailing northeast monsoon. —NEIL CLARK ONGCHANGCO
BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — Residents and tourists have more reason to bundle up as the cold spell and brisk winds continued to sweep over the summer capital, causing the mercury to drop to 10.6ºC during the last day of 2021, the state weather bureau said on Friday.
The low temperature was recorded at 6 a.m. and was the coldest this “amihan” or northeast monsoon season, according to the synoptic station of Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration here.
At Mt. Sto. Tomas, the highest peak in the city, the temperature plunged to 9.5ºC on the same day.
The chilly weather in the city and other parts of northern Luzon is due to the surge of cool northeast wind, which blows from Siberia and is felt between October and early March. It usually peaks between January and February.
Baguio began to experience lower morning temperatures in December that ranged from 11ºC to 16ºC.
In nearby La Trinidad town, the capital of Benguet province; the temperature was colder at 7.7 degrees Celsius early on Friday, according to Frankie Raga, chief of the agricultural-meteorological research station of the Benguet State University. It was the coldest in the municipality in 2021.
In 2020, the town’s lowest morning temperature was registered at 7.9ºC on Feb. 20.
Baguio’s coldest temperature registered in the last four years was at 9ºC, which was experienced on Feb. 21, 2021. It was on Jan. 18, 1961, when the city recorded its lowest ever at 6.3ºC.
Influx of tourists
Almost 195,000 fully vaccinated guests have traveled here this month to enjoy the cold temperature, which is expected to further drop in the coming days.
During the Christmas week alone from Dec. 20 to Dec. 26, the city drew 39,955 tourist arrivals, the highest compared to the previous weeks after Mayor Benjamin Magalong eased the ban on leisure travel during the Halloween and All Saints’ Day weekend.
The city government raised its daily cap of visitors from 4,000 to 5,000 when the number of COVID-19 cases in the city improved in mid-December.
But medical workers of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) were concerned about crowding and big gatherings in the city given the threat of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19, said BGHMC nurse Czarina Mendoza at a press briefing on Dec. 22.
“We do not have any way of determining if protocols are being practiced,” Mendoza said.
As of Thursday, Baguio’s active COVID-19 cases rose to 34, a slight increase after the city health services office recorded a sharp dive in cases this month.
The city had zero cases on Christmas Day, for example, and only had six active cases at that time.