Cold wave conditions prevail over several regions in North India

The same is likely in Punjab on January 3 and 4.

A biting cold swept Punjab and Haryana on Tuesday with minimum temperatures settling below normal at many places. A thick blanket of fog in the morning enveloped several parts of both states.

Due to light winds and high moisture near the surface over the Indo-Gangetic plains, dense to very dense fog will likely be seen in many pockets of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar over the next five days, as well as Uttarakhand in the next 24 hours.

Dense fog is also likely to envelope a few regions in north Madhya Pradesh, north Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura on Tuesday (January 3).

Cold wave conditions are likely to persist in Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi from January 3 to 7, the IMD’s forecast predicted.

Delhi shivered on Monday as the maximum temperature fell to 17.3 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season’s average. The minimum temperature was recorded at 7.6 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year. Humidity levels oscillated between 69 per cent and 97 per cent on the same day.

Shallow fog wrapped parts of the national capital on Tuesday morning, dropping visibility and affecting vehicular movement on roads, as the minimum temperature settled at 8.5 degrees Celsius.

In view of the harsh weather conditions and extreme cold wave, the district magistrate of Lucknow had earlier announced a change in the school timings for students of Classes 1 to 8. According to the revised schedule, schools will now operate between 10 am and 2 pm.

The Punjab government had also extended winter holidays in all government, private and aided schools till January 8 in view of the extreme weather conditions.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the cold wave has intensified with mercury plunging more than five degrees below the freezing point in Srinagar. Gulmarg and Pahalgam recorded their lowest temperatures so far this winter on Monday.