By IANS
New Delhi : Millions in the north and northwestern parts of India continued to shiver Thursday even as the weatherman forecast respite only by the weekend.
The minimum temperature in the national capital was 3.4 degrees Celsius, or nearly six degrees below normal for this time of the year. A foreign website has forecast that the minimum temperature in Delhi could plunge to zero degrees Celsius on Friday.
Severe cold wave also engulfed Punjab, Haryana, west Uttar Pradesh, east Rajasthan and west Madhya Pradesh. Chandigarh saw the mercury touching 1.4 degrees Celsius. This was a deviation of nearly seven degrees Celsius from the normal for this time of the year.
The lowest minimum temperature in the plains was m degrtee Celsius below the freezing point, recorded at Sarsawa in Uttar Pradesh.
The Met Office here forecast that the present weather condition would continue during next 24 hours till Friday. The night temperature may rise from Feb 2 onwards, the Met Office said.
As the north shivered, it was wet in the east. Kolkata saw 26.8 mm of rainfall while Orissa and Assam also had their share of wet weather. More rain is forecast for the region in the coming days.
The following are the maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall in major cities for the 24 hours till Thursday morning, with figures in brackets denoting deviations from the average.
City Maximum Temperature Minimum Temperature Rainfall
(C) (C) (mm)
Delhi 19.5 (-3) 3.4 (-6) Nil
Mumbai 27.9 (-1) 13.6 (-2) Nil
Chennai 30.7 (+2) 24.0 (+3) Nil
Kolkata 24.7 (-3) 13.0 (-2) 26.8
Ahmedabad 25.4 (-1) 11.0 (-2) Nil
Bangalore 31.2 (+3) 18.4 (+3) Nil
Bhopal 23.0 (-3) 16.2 (-5) Nil
Bhubaneswar 30.1 (+1) 16.2 (-1) 6.2
Chandigarh 19.2 (-3) 1.4 (-7) Nil
Dehradun 14.4 (-6) 1.8 (-5) Nil
Panaji 31.0 (0) 17.2 (-2) Nil
Guwahati 18.8 (-5) 11.5 (+1) 4.2
Hyderabad 32.0 (+2) 17.9 (+2) Nil
Jaipur 20.0 (-4) 4.2 (-5) Nil
Lucknow 21.2 (-2) 7.2 (-1) Nil
Nagpur 31.0 (0) 17.2 (-2) Nil
Patna 19.3 (-5) 11.0 (+1) Nil
Pune 28.1 (-2) 8.3 (-3) Nil
Srinagar 6.7 (+1) -4.3 (-3) Nil
Thiruvananthapuram 33.7 (+2) 23.8 (+2) Nil