Residents of Delhi experienced bone-chilling cold even as the city witnessed the chilliest morning of the season for third consecutive days on Sunday with the mercury remaining below 3.9-degrees Celsius mark.
On Sunday, the city woke up to the coldest morning of the season with the minimum temperature recorded at 3.5 degrees Celsius, 4 points below the season’s average, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The Lodi Road area recorded the lowest minimum temperature across the city at 3.4 degrees Celsius.
The Weather Department’s forecast for Monday indicates cold wave and dense fog to continue in Delhi with the minimum temperature to hover around 4 degrees Celsius.
Several flights and about 22 trains were delayed due very the fog in the early hours of Sunday.
The Delhi Airport issued passenger advisory urging the fliers to contact the concerned airlines for updated flight information.
Several passengers were stranded at the airport waiting for their flights.
Not only rail and aerial transportation, the fog affected road traffic too, especially in the outer areas of the national capital on the highways, leaving the vehicles crawl at very low speeds due to low visibility, which began to improve only after 9.30 am.
According to a MET official, “The visibility was almost zero at the Palam area after 5 am and continued to be so till around 9.30 am.”
The cold wave conditions affect the life of the people during the early hours amid the biting cold on Sunday morning. However, the maximum temperature during the day was 20.6 degrees Celsius, which further started to drop towards the evening.
Amid the intensified cold, Delhi’s air quality also entered severe zone on Sunday. The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) held an emergency meeting to review the situation and invoked actions under the Graded Response Action Plan stage-III to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.
Meanwhile, the northern region remained in the grip of cold wave and dense fog affecting the daily life across states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal and Uttar Pradesh.