Around 5 a.m. Sunday, the local office of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) recorded the biggest drop in the city’s temperature since the season of the “hanging amihan” or northeast monsoon began.

Mercury dropped to 11 degrees Celsius compared to the 12.8°C recorded by the weather bureau’s instruments in the early morning of New Year’s Day.

However, local weathermen revealed that local residents and visitors should prepare for the prevalence of much cooler days in the coming months following the expected existence of the tail end of the cold front by February which indicates that the snow in mainland China and Siberia are melting, thus, cooler winds will be blown towards most parts of Northern Luzon.

Last year, the city’s lowest temperature played between 12.4 to 14 degrees Celsius which was much lower compared to the normal 15 to 17 degrees Celsius recorded by the weather bureau during the previous months.

Because of the continuous drop in the city’s temperature, local businessmen engaged in the sale of clothes are now wrecking havoc in terms of their sales following the mad rush for the purchase of thick clothes by local residents and visitors who want to protect themselves from the effects of the cold days ahead.

If local businessmen are happy over the prevalence of colder days because of the expected influx of more visitors who are willing to spend, the situation is totally different in the vegetable-producing areas of nearby Benguet considering that they are now bracing for the expected serious negative effects of frosts bites to their crops which are on their vegetative, flowering and harvestable stages.

Frost bites usually happen when ice crystals caused by the drop in temperature form on the leaves of plants which result in the wilting of the leaves once the same is exposed to direct sunlight.

Once the frost is not removed from the leaves of plants before being hit by the rays of the sun, the plants will die.

Dexter See, Manila Bulletin