New year begins on chilly note for North; mercury drops below 1 deg C at several places

The New Year began on a chilly note for North India as several places, from the plains to the hills, recorded temperatures below 1 degree Celsius with Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar, which nearly touched the 50-degree mark last summer, shivering at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Delhi also witnessed cold wave conditions as the minimum temperature settled at 2.4 degrees Celsius, five notches below normal. Twenty-nine trains were delayed by two to nine hours as fog reduced visibility, officials said.

Bone-chilling cold wave swept Punjab and Haryana with Ludhiana being the coldest place in both the states recording 0.3 degrees Celsius, five notches below normal.

Pathankot, Adampur, Halwara, Bathinda, Faridkot and Gurdaspur recorded their minimums at 0.8, 0.4, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2 and 3.1 degrees Celsius respectively. Among other places, Amritsar and Patiala braved chill at a low of 2.4 and 1.6 degrees Celsius respectively, up to five degrees below normal.

In Haryana, Ambala, Hisar and Karnal braved chill at 2.4, 1, 0.6 degrees Celsius respectively, up to six notches below normal.

Narnaul, Rohtak, Sirsa and Bhiwani experienced cold wave conditions at 1, 1.6, 2.4 and 3.8 degrees Celsius respectively. Union Territory Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, recorded its minimum of 3.5 degree Celsius, two degrees below normal.

Himachal Pradesh experienced dry and cold weather on Wednesday with a number of places of tourist attraction in the state shivering at sub-zero temperatures.

Keylong recorded the lowest temperature in the state at minus 10 degrees Celsius. Kalpa in Kinnaur district registered a low of minus 4.1 degrees Celsius, while Manali, Kufri and Solan shivered at minus 2.6 degrees Celsius, minus 2.3 degrees Celsius and minus 1 degree Celsius respectively.

The minimum temperature at Dalhousie and Shimla was 0.1 degrees Celsius and 1.4 degrees Celsius respectively. The highest maximum temperature in the state was recorded in Bilaspur at 16.5 degrees Celsius.

In Rajasthan, Sri Ganganagar was the coldest place with mercury settling at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature touched 49.6 degrees Celsius on May 31, 2019 in Sri Ganganagar, breaking a 75-year record for the month of May.

Elsewhere in the state, Jaisalmer, Pilani, Bikaner, Sikar and Barmer recorded minimum temperatures of 2.7, 2.9, 3.4, 4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius respectively.

A day after some respite, minimum temperatures across the Kashmir Valley dropped again with the MeT department predicting a spell of moderate to heavy snowfall in Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh from Wednesday onwards.

Srinagar city recorded the low of minus 4.4 degrees Celsius on Tuesday night - down from minus 3.2 degrees Celsius the previous night, the official said.

Officials said the ski-resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir was the coldest place in the valley with a low of minus 11.0 degrees Celsius Wednesday night - nearly four notches down from the previous night's minus 7.2 degrees Celsius.

The mercury in the Drass town settled at a low of minus 17.0 degrees Celsius - over five degrees up from minus 22.6 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

In Uttar Pradesh, Etawah and Meerut were the coldest places in the state with both recording a low of 2.8 degrees Celsius. Lucknow recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. Varanasi recorded a minimum of 6.5 degrees Celsius, while in Allahabad, it was 7.2 degrees Celsius.

In the east, cold wave conditions were witnessed in Odisha with five places in the state recording minimum temperature below 10 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, a MeT department official said.

Minimum temperature rose two to three notches, while maximum fell by three to four notches. While the highest maximum temperature of 30 degree Celsius was recorded at Malkangiri, the lowest minimum temperature of 6.8 degree was at Keonjhar in the plains of Odisha.

The minimum temperature of Angul was recorded at 7.6 degrees Celsius, followed by Talcher (8.9), Phulbani (9 ), Sonepur (9.6), Sundergarh (10) and Balasore (10.1).

The state capital, Bhubaneswar, recorded 12.6 degree Celsius while neighbouring Cuttack also shivered at 10.8 degree Celsius.