Cold wave grips North India as mercury hit’s a low, Rail & Air traffic hit

A cold wave has gripped North India as the mercury there hits the lowest temperatures in two decades. Due to the thick fog cover visibility was reduced affecting flight and railway services on Saturday. Most of northern India shivered due to the bone-chilling cold.

In Delhi, which has been experiencing a cold spell for 15 days, the minimum temperature at Safdarjung observatory, plummeted to 2.4 ºCelsius, five degrees below normal. The minimum and maximum temperatures recorded at Lodhi Road observatory were 1.7ºC and 13ºC, respectively.

Kuldeep Shrivastava, the head of Regional Weather Forecasting Centre in Delhi, said, “Severe cold wave and cold day conditions will continue for two more days. The minimum temperature on Sunday may drop further. We are expecting a marginal rise in temperature on December 31 and January 1, and rains from December 31 night, which is likely to relieve severe cold day conditions.”

Due to the low visibility, six incoming flights were diverted to other destinations, two departing flights were canceled and over 150 delayed. 24 trains were delayed by two-five hours due to poor visibility. They included the Howrah-New Delhi Poorva Express, Bengaluru-Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express, and Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express.

IMD has issued a red-color warning for Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and amber-color warning for Madhya Pradesh for Sunday. A red-coded warning is given for extreme weather events.

I’m really Privileged to cover one of the best #Winters of the history in North India. Cold blast day- 13, turns out to be coldest day of the season for most stations of North India and many records were shattered. #December 2019 to be remembered forever! #Coldwave pic.twitter.com/fojQemDb9P

— Navdeep Dahiya (@navdeepdahiya55) December 28, 2019

In Haryana and Punjab, the minimum temperature on Saturday was five-seven notches below normal. Hisar was the coldest place in the two states, at 0.2 ºC. Muzaffarnagar was the coldest place recorded in UP, where the mercury fell to 1.7ºC. Several parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, also reeled due to the cold as water supply lines and parts of the famous Dal Lake in Srinagar froze. The city recorded the coldest night of the season at minus 5.8ºC.

Coldest night of season in #Kashmir Temperatures minus 6 in Srinagar #coldwave pic.twitter.com/OhrXxWX1IC

— Ashraf Wani اشرف وانی (@ashraf_wani) December 28, 2019

Many areas in Himachal Pradesh, including Kufri, Manali, and Solan, recorded temperatures below the freezing point. Fatehpur in Sikar district of Rajasthan recorded the lowest temperature in the state at minus 4ºC. Sikar and Mount Abu recorded a minimum of minus 1 and minus 1.5 ºC.

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