Delhi’ites woke up to a chilly morning on Thursday. While the people braved piercing cold, dense fog continued to flight and train operations.

Minimum temperature on Thursday morning settled at 6.6 degrees Celsius, one point lesser than the normal for the season, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The sun did comfort the residents of the city for a while during the day, but the icy winds continued to give the ‘bone-chilling’ effect throughout the day as the mercury took a dip towards the evening pegging at below 10 degrees Celsius at several places in the city.

During the day, the sky was mainly clear with the maximum temperature recorded at 18.6 degrees Celsius, a notch below season’s average, as per the Weather Department.

Night shelters were filled with homeless people who struggled to keep themselves warm amid chilly weather conditions. At some places, people sat beside bonfires in a bid to keep themselves warm.

Many people across the city were seen soaking in the sun in the afternoon while giving out an expression of feeling cold despite improvement in the temperatures by a point or two from a couple of days.

A commuter at Connaught Place told The Statesman that despite the sun shining bright, he experienced cold penetrating the layers of woolens he had put on to keep himself warm. “Maybe it is because of the gentle but chilly breeze that is making things worse,” he said with a sigh.

The weather agency forecast dense fog likely to be present during the early morning hours of Friday while the minimum and the maximum temperatures are likely to hover at 6 and 18 degrees Celsius respectively.

Meanwhile, the weatherman has forecast cold wave conditions at several places across Punjab and Haryana, with dense to very dense fog during the morning and late night hours.

In a statement on Thursday, the IMD said, “Very dense fog conditions have also been persisting over the plains of Northwest India since 25th December which was maximum in intensity & duration on 14th when zero visibility was observed over entire north Indian plains from Amritsar to Dibrugarh across Haryana, Delhi, UP and Bihar. This severe weather owes mainly to 3 reasons: 1- Lack of any Active Western Disturbance (WD) over Northwest India 2- Prevailing El-Nino conditions 3- Strong Jet Stream.”