North India reels under intense cold, season's coldest day in Delhi

The northern plains continued to reel under intense cold conditions as mercury dipped below freezing point at some places in Rajasthan and Haryana while the national capital experienced the coldest day of the season on Wednesday.

The mercury went further down the freezing point by several degrees across Kashmir Valley and Ladakh region with some places registering the lowest night temperature of the season.

In the national capital, Safdarjung observatory, the figure of which is considered official for the city, recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal, while Lodhi Road recorded a minimum of 2.3 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature was 17.2 degrees Celsius, three notches below season’s average at Safdarjung.

As many as 11 north-bound trains were cancelled while 26 were delayed due to fog, a senior railway official said.

However, flight operations were normal except minor delays.

Cold conditions aggravated in parts of Rajasthan where mercury dipped below freezing point at three places and the night temperatures plummeted across the state.

Mercury dipped to minus 2.4 degrees Celsius at Mount Abu, the sole hill station of the state. In the plains, Churu was the coldest in the state recording a minimum of minus 0.3 degrees Celsius followed by 0.5 degrees Celsius in Alwar and 1 degree Celsius in Bhilwara.

Cold conditions also tightened its grip on Punjab and Haryana and icy winds swept many parts of both the states despite bright sunshine in the morning.

Narnaul in Haryana, which was the coldest, shivered at minus 0.5 degree Celsius, five notches below normal, a MeT department official said.

Amritsar in Punjab shivered at 0.9 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal while Ludhiana and Patiala recorded their lows at 1.6 degrees Celsius and 2.7 degrees Celsius respectively.

In Haryana, Ambala braved cold weather at 4.4 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal while Hisar witnessed bone-chilling cold at 2.4 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal.