“Severe” cold gripped much of north India on Monday, bringing one of the coldest days in the Capital Delhi, this year. A dense blanket of fog settled over large swathes of the Ingo-Gangetic plains, blocking out the sun and keeping the mercury levels low. The Met department predicted the conditions will persist over the region for the next few days.
The cold wave conditions are very likely in some parts of northern Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi, over the next three days and in Himachal Pradesh over the next two days, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
A dense layer of fog continued to spread from Punjab to East UP across Haryana-Delhi, North Rajasthan and West UP. the weather agency said.
The agency’s evening forecast on Monday also predicted dense to very dense fog over parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand and western Rajasthan over the next two days. But the fog is expected to persist over parts of Punjab during the subsequent three days.
Snowfall In Mountains: Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather, said a western disturbance led to a fresh spell of snowfall in the mountains on December 25-26 and cold northwesterly winds are now sweeping through the plains after its retreat.
“An increase in the humidity levels due to the WD resulted in dense to very dense fog which reduced the sunshine, pulling down the day temperature further,” he said. Palawat said the wind chill factor — a measure of the rate of heat loss from skin that is exposed to the air — is also high.
The higher the wind speed during cold weather, the colder it feels on the skin if a person is outside.
Delhi: A severe cold wave gripped the region with the maximum temperature plummeting 10 degrees below normal in Delhi. Meteorologists attributed the sharp drop in day temperatures to frigid northwesterly winds barrelling through the plains and reduced sunshine due to foggy weather.
In Delhi, dense fog lowered visibility to 50 metres in some areas, affecting road and rail traffic. Ten trains were reported running late by 1.45 to 3.30 hours, a Railway spokesperson said.
The mercury dropped to 3 degrees Celsius in the Ridge area, 4.9 degrees below normal, making it the coldest place in the national capital. The Ridge and the Ayanagar weather stations recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees Celsius and 4.1 degrees Celsius, respectively.
The Safdarjung observatory, Delhi’s primary weather station, logged a minimum temperature of 5 degrees Celsius — three notches below normal. The Palam observatory recorded a minimum temperature of 6.5 degrees Celsius and a maximum of 12.5 degrees Celsius, a departure of nine degrees Celsius from normal.
The automatic weather stations at Ayanagar, Lodhi Road, Ridge, Najafgarh, Pitampura, and Mayur Vihar recorded a maximum temperature of six to eight notches below normal.
Delhi clocked a top wind speed of 15 kilometres per hour on Monday. Visuals from Delhi Noida Direct way and Bara Pulla Showed that a dense layer of fog enveloped the region, hindering traffic movement.
Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh: Biting cold conditions and dense fog were reported in several parts of Punjab and Haryana, with Narnaul being the coldest in the region at 2.4 degrees Celsius.
In Haryana, Hisar recorded a piercing cold as the minimum temperature plunged to 2.5 degrees Celsius. Ambala recorded a low of 7.7 degrees Celsius, Karnal 6.8 degrees Celsius, Rohtak 6.6 degrees Celsius, Bhiwani 5.5 degrees Celsius, and Sirsa 5.2 degrees Celsius.
Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, recorded a minimum temperature of 7.4 degrees Celsius.
In Punjab, Amritsar recorded a low of 6.5 degrees Celsius, Ludhiana 6 degrees Celsius, Pathankot 8.8 degrees Celsius, Bathinda 3.6 degrees Celsius, Faridkot 6 degrees Celsius, and Gurdaspur 4.5 degrees Celsius.
Rajasthan: Intense cold conditions and fog affected normal life in parts of Rajasthan on Monday.
At a minimum temperature of minus 1.5 degrees Celsius, Fatehpur was recorded as the coldest place in the desert state followed by Churu and Pilani (Jhunjhunu) where the mercury settled at 0 degree Celsius and 0.2 degree Celsius respectively on Sunday night, according to the Met department.
Karauli and Sikar recorded a minimum of 0.5 and 1 degree Celsius while the night temperature was 2 degrees Celsius in Alwar, 2.4 in Bikaner, 2.7 in Bhilwara, 3 in Nagaur, 4.4 in Sriganganagar, Sangaria (Hanumangarh) and Vanasthali (Tonk), 4.5 in Dholpur and Anta (Baran), 4.7 in Chittorgarh, 5 in Dabok (Udaipur), 5.2 in Phalodi (Jodhpur) and 5.5 degree Celsius in Bundi.
The maximum temperature in most of the places in the state was recorded between 16 and 25 degree Celsius.
Fog: Very dense fog also occurred in isolated areas. Bathinda in Punjab and Bikaner in Rajasthan reported zero visibility, while it dropped to 50 metres and below at Ambala, Hisar, Amritsar, Patiala, Ganganagar, Churu and Bareilly.
Foggy conditions will persist in these areas over the next few days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
According to the IMD, ‘very dense’ fog is when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres, 51 and 200 metres is ‘dense’, 201 and 500 ‘moderate’, and 501 and 1,000 ‘shallow.’ In the plains, the IMD declares a cold wave if the minimum temperature dips to 4 degrees Celsius. A cold wave is also declared when the minimum temperature is 10 degrees Celsius or below and is 4.5 notches below normal.
A ‘severe’ cold wave is when the minimum temperature dips to two degrees Celsius or the departure from normal is more than 6.4 degrees Celsius.
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