Dense fog engulfs Pb, Har; 42 trains delayed due to bad weather

A thick blanket of fog engulfed most parts of Punjab and Haryana today, while in Kashmir Valley, the night temperatures dipped several notches below the freezing point even as 42 trains were delayed, nine cancelled and 28 trains rescheduled due to bad weather.
Mainly clear skies prevailed in the national capital as the sun shone bright over the city throughout the day with the maximum temperature settling at 24.4 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperature was recorded at 7.9 degrees Celsius.
According to a MeT department official, the visibility in Delhi was recorded at 1,200 mt at Safdarjung at 5.30 AM and 1,000 mt at 8.30 AM. It significantly improved to 2,000 mt at 11.30 AM.

Dense to very dense fog engulfed a few places over Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi and Punjab in the morning hours.
Minimum temperatures remained few notches below normal in some areas of Haryana and Punjab.
Narnaul in Haryana was the coldest place in both the states as it recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal.

Hisar and Karnal also witnessed the drop in mercury by registering minimum temperatures at 5.3 and 5.2 degrees Celsius respectively.
Chandigarh registered its minimum temperature at 6.7 degrees Celsius, while minimum temperature of Amritsar was 6 degrees Celsius. Ludhiana and Patiala recorded minimum temperature of 5.4 and 6.7 degrees Celsius respectively.

Leh was recorded as the coldest place in Jammu and Kashmir as the mercury plummeted to the season's lowest of minus 13.2 degrees Celsius there, while the nearby Kargil also shivered at a low of minus 9.4 degrees Celsius.
The Meteorological Department has forecast mainly dry weather in the state over the week ahead, which could lead to further drop in the night temperature.
In Himachal Pradesh, intense cold wave continued even as minimum temperature in state was below normal and hovered around freezing point at many places.
The high altitude travel area had no respite from cold as mercury stayed between minus 8 and minus 15 degrees Celsius while Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district recorded minimum temperature at minus 3.1 degrees Celsius.

Cold conditions prevailed in Rajasthan also with Sriganganagar registering a minimum day temperature of 5.7 degrees Celsius with 10 trains running behind the schedule from 35 minutes to 11 hours.
Night temperatures were appreciably below normal in some parts of Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and in some parts of Assam, Meghalaya and east Uttar Pradesh.