The day after Christmas, Delhi woke up to the chilliest day in the last 8 years with icy northwesterly winds. The last time day temperatures were at 16 degrees C on Christmas was in 2014.
The weather service predicted the cold wave will last for several days, so Delhi and parts of north India awoke to numbing cold. With the arrival of a cold wave, temperatures have dropped throughout Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi over the past week.
On Sunday, the temperature in Delhi dropped to 5.3 degrees Celsius, three degrees below average, and regions of Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana were shrouded in thick fog.
According to officials, the majority of these states have had minimum temperatures between 3 and 7 degrees Celsius. They also noted that reduced visibility caused by the foggy weather had a negative impact on road and train traffic in a number of locations.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts that beginning on December 27 or 28 in the morning, dense to very dense fog conditions would lessen in intensity and extend over northwest India. After 48 hours, the cold wave conditions are also probably going to subside.
Weather Forecast for Kashmir:
As the minimum temperature in Kashmir dropped several degrees below the freezing point, the frigid conditions worsened.
Kashmir is currently experiencing "Chilla-i-Kalan," the 40-day period of the hardest winter, during which a cold wave grabs the area and the temperature drops significantly, causing water bodies and water supply pipes to freeze in several areas of the valley.
Weather Forecast for the Southern States:
During Saurashtra and Kutch over the next two days, isolated pockets of cold wave conditions are also extremely likely.
Meanwhile, as the Depression over the Southwest Bay of Bengal off the coast of Sri Lanka moved southwestward, mild to moderate rainfall at many locations with severe rainfall at isolated locations is predicted over south coastal Tamil Nadu and south Kerala on Monday.