Southern Regional Hydro-Meteorological Center on Thursday said temperatures would drop to their lowest in the early morning, before gradually rising during the day. The highest temperature could go up to 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit) at noon, it added.

From Friday, HCMC and other southern Vietnam regions could experience unseasonal rains, negatively affecting plants and flowers to be used as decorations for the Lunar New Year Festival in February.

After next Monday, another mass of cold air would affect southern Vietnam, though not as severely as the one prior.

Le Dinh Quyet, deputy head of the center’s forecasting department, said temperature differences between noon and the afternoon could be up to 13 degrees Celsius apart. Such differences could cause fatigue, especially for those who work outdoors.

HCMC has a tropical wet and dry climate, with average temperature of 27.5 degrees Celsius.

In the past decade, the coldest temperature recorded in the city was 17 degrees Celsius in 2009. Its coldest temperature ever recorded since 1976 was 16.4 degrees Celsius on Dec. 25, 1999. Last year, the coldest temperature was 20 degrees Celsius, according to the center.

Vietnam is expected to experience a colder winter than usual this year as the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature drops, forming the La Niña phenomenon, weather experts said last year. The country should expect up to 27 waves of cold air coming from the north this winter, a typical average.

Average temperatures in the first three months of 2021 are expected to be approximately the same as previous years. More frequent rainfall can occur in central and southern Vietnam as a result of La Niña, and even during the dry season in the Central Highlands, according to Nguyen Van Huong, head of the weather forecasting department at the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.