By IANS
New Delhi : The entire northern India shivered as a severe cold wave swept across the region, the mercury dropping to its lowest of the season.The minimum temperature in the Kashmir Valley fell to 5.7 degrees Celsius below zero Monday.
“The minimum temperature recorded today (Monday) was minus 5.7 degrees Celsius. We have been experiencing cloudless skies during the last seven days now. This causes fall in the temperatures,” said an official of the weather department in Srinagar.
“Same weather conditions are likely to continue for a few more days,” he said.
Reports from the state’s hilly areas like Gulmarg, Sonamarg and Pahalgam said three to five feet of frozen snow was still on the ground there.
Most of the water taps in the summer capital Srinagar and other major towns of the valley had frozen and people were seen lighting fires under the pipes to de-freeze them.
Cold wave conditions swept through most of north India with temperatures dropping by nearly five degrees below the average temperature at this time of the year.
Adampur town near Jalandhar recorded a low of minus 3.0 degrees Celsius, making it the coldest place in Punjab and in the region.
Even Shimla, the capital of neighbouring hill state of Himachal Pradesh, recorded a minimum of minus 2.2 degrees Celsius. It is the first time that the mercury has plummeted so low in Shimla this winter.
Weather officials in New Delhi said the cold wave conditions, assisted by winds, would continue over the region for the next two-three days.
Punjab’s industrial hub Ludhiana recorded a low of 1.1 degrees and Patiala recorded 2.1 degrees, both five degrees Celsius below normal.
Chandigarh – the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana – was comparatively warmer with the minimum at four degrees Celsius, two degrees below normal.
In neighboring Haryana, Narnaul town was the coldest at one degree while Ambala recorded 1.6 degrees Celsius, five degrees below normal.
The following are the maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall in major cities for the 24 hours till Monday morning, with figures in brackets denoting deviations from the average.
City Maximum Temperature Minimum Temperature Rainfall
(C) (C) (mm)
Delhi 17.8 (-3) 6.4 (-1) Nil
Mumbai 27.3 (-4) 12.9 (-3) Nil
Chennai 29.8 (+2) 19.0 (-2) Nil
Kolkata 29.8 (+3) 20.7 (+7) Nil
Ahmedabad 25.0 (-4) 9.0 (-3) Nil
Bangalore 29.2 (-2) 14.2 (-1) Nil
Bhopal 26.4 (0) 10.4 (0) Nil
Bhubaneswar 31.8 (+4) 17.8 (+2) Nil
Chandigarh 18.4 (-2) 4.0 (-2) Nil
Dehradun 15.6 (-3) 5.6 (0) Nil
Panaji 31.2 (0) 19.0 (0) Nil
Guwahati 25.4 (+2) 13.1 (+3) Nil
Hyderabad 32.4 (+3) 17.0 (+2) Nil
Jaipur 21.0 (-1) 3.2 (-5) Nil
Lucknow 24.6 (+3) 7.3 (-1) Nil
Nagpur 31.3 (+2) 13.7 (+1) Nil
Patna 26.4 (+3) 12.1 (+2) Nil
Pune 32.0 (+2) 11.2 (0) Nil
Srinagar 5.9 (+1) -5.6 (-2) Nil
Thiruvananthapuram 32.4 (-1) 21.3 (+1) Nil