Several parts of north India reeled under severe cold and dense fog affected railway movement, with Delhi recording a minimum temperature of three degrees Celsius — the lowest in January in two years — making it cooler than several hill stations.
Most people kept indoors and turned to space heaters and cups of hot beverages to keep themselves warm as frosty winds from the snow-clad Himalayas barrelled through the plains, including the national capital.
The Meteorological (MeT) Department had on Wednesday issued an orange alert for Delhi-NCR for Thursday and Friday.
Much on expected lines, Delhi’s minimum temperature was lower than Dalhousie (4.9 degrees Celsius), Dharamshala (5.2 degrees Celsius), Kangra (3.2 degrees Celsius), Shimla (3.7 degrees Celsius), Dehradun (4.6 degrees Celsius), Mussoorie (4.4 degrees Celsius) and Nainital (6.2 degrees Celsius), according to official data.
Jammu and Kashmir too saw a dip in temperature, with capital Srinagar recording its coldest night of the season so far at minus 6.4 degrees Celsius on Wednesday night against minus 5.2 degrees Celsius the night before.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said dense fog blanketed several parts of north India and the situation would continue in the coming weeks.
At least 12 trains were delayed by one-and-a-half to six hours and two rescheduled due to the foggy weather, a railways spokesperson 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 metres ‘moderate’, and 501 and 1,000 metres ‘shallow’.
The Delhi airport has also issued a fog alert, saying low visibility procedures were in progress.
“All flight operations are presently normal. Passengers are requested to contact the airline concerned for updated flight information,” the advisory read.
The prevailing cold conditions pushed Delhi’s peak power demand to a record high of 5,247 MW on Thursday morning, more than the peaks during winters in the past two years, officials said.
The surge in power demand was mainly due to increased heating needs of the people that normally formed 50 per cent of the total demand, power distribution company officials said.
In neighbouring Noida, two restaurant workers died and as many were hospitalized with injuries allegedly after a truck hit their motorcycle amid reduced visibility due to fog early on Thursday, police said.
“An underpass is being constructed near the Advant Building. The canter truck appears to have gone out of control due to the fog and reduced visibility in the night. The truck hit a concrete structure first and then rammed into the motorcycle on which four people were riding,” Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Ashutosh Dwivedi said.
For Rajasthan, the meteorological office has issued an ‘orange alert’ indicating that extreme cold wave may continue in many districts, including Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Jhunjhunu and Karauli.
The IMD uses four colour codes for weather warnings — green (no action needed), yellow (watch and stay updated), orange (be prepared) and red (take action).
The desert state continued to reel under intense cold conditions with Churu and Sikar recording sub-zero minimum temperatures.
The minimum temperature was recorded at minus 1.8 degrees Celsius in Fatehpur (Sikar) and minus 1.5 degrees in Churu on Wednesday night, according to the Met office.
In most parts of Rajasthan, the minimum temperature remained below four degrees Celsius, while dense fog also enveloped many places on Thursday morning.
Coldwave conditions will continue in Rajasthan during the next two days, the weather office said.
In Jammu and Kashmir, officials said the minimum temperature in Srinagar was also the second lowest in the month of January in the last five years.
Qazigund, the gateway town to the Kashmir Valley, registered a minimum of minus 6.2 degrees Celsius – a degree down from the previous night, they said.
The tourist destination of Pahalgam in Anantnag district, which also serves as a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra, registered a low of minus 9.2 degrees Celsius and was the coldest recorded place in Jammu and Kashmir.
There was no let up in biting cold that has been sweeping Punjab and Haryana for the past several days, with minimum temperatures on Thursday again hovering below normal limits at many places.
Gurdaspur was the coldest place in Punjab recording a minimum temperature of 2.2 degrees Celsius.
Bathinda recorded a low of 3 degree Celsius, Ludhiana 5.7 degree Celsius, Patiala 5 degree Celsius, Amritsar 5.5 degree Celsius while Mohali recorded a low of 6 degree Celsius .
In Haryana, biting cold prevailed in Hisar, which recorded a minimum temperature of 2.2 degree Celsius.
Bhiwani recorded a low of 6.7 degree Celsius, Karnal 6 degree Celsius, Rohtak 5.4 degree Celsius, Sirsa 6.4 degree Celsius while Ambala’s minimum settled at 5.5 degree Celsius.
Chandigarh, the common capital of the two states, recorded a low of 5.1 degree Celsius.
The IMD issued an ‘orange alert’ for moderate to dense fog in six divisions and 15 districts in Madhya Pradesh.
The IMD also said Datia and Chhatarpur districts in the central state experienced cold wave during the day, while four districts witnessed ‘severe cold’ and 12 districts, including capital Bhopal and commercial hub Indore, saw ‘cold day’.
A cold day is when the minimum temperature is less than or equal to 10 degrees Celsius below the normal and the maximum temperature is at least 4.5 degrees below the normal. A severe cold day is when the maximum is 6.5 degrees Celsius or more below the normal.
In Gujarat’s Kutch district, Naliya village recorded the state’s lowest temperature at 2 degrees Celsius.
While Naliya is experiencing a ‘cold wave’, Deesa in neighbouring Banaskantha district recorded its lowest temperature at 7 degrees Celsius, followed by 8 degrees Celsius at Kandla Airport, 9 degrees Celsius in Bhuj, Gandhinagar and Vallabh Vidyanagar. Ahmedabad’s minimum temperature was 10 degrees Celsius, which was 2 degrees Celsius less than normal temperature.
In the plains, the Met office declares a cold wave if the minimum temperature dips to four degrees Celsius or when the minimum temperature is 10 degrees or below and is 4.5 notches below the normal.
A severe cold wave is when the minimum temperature dips to two degrees Celsius or the departure from the normal is more than 6.4 degrees.
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