Delhiites Monday woke up to a chilly Monday accompanied with dense fog. The minimum temperature was recorded at 4.2 degrees Celsius, four notches below the season's average. It was the coldest Monday in the last five years, the Met Office said.
The thick fog reduced visibility to 50 metres, that led to the delayed arrival of 50 trains and the rescheduling of 12.
"Due to the poor visibility the arrival of 50 trains from various parts of the country to the national capital has been delayed while 12 trains have been rescheduled and one has been cancelled," said an official of the Northern Railway.
The Met Office has forecast a cloudy day ahead with dense fog in the evening.
"Monday ahead will be cloudy and fog is likely to remain through out the day," said an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The maximum temperature is likely to hover around 16 degree Celsius.
Humidity at 8.30 a.m. was 97 percent.
Sunday's maximum temperature was recorded at 15 degrees Celsius, seven notches below the season's average while the minimum temperature slumped to 6.4 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season's average.
Life in rest of north India was disrupted as well. Uttar Pradesh continued to shiver as the cold wave further intensified Monday, a development which led to the closure of all schools up to standard 12 in the state capital. The district administration ordered their closure after parents complained that the weather was too harsh for children to go up to their schools early in the morning.
Icy winds blowing from the neighbouring hill state of Uttarakhand worsened the situation which had already been compounded by the dense fog that has blanketed the state for the last couple of days.
Dense fog continued to disrupt normal life in Punjab and Haryana as air, rail, and road traffic remained adversely affected with temperatures plummeting to below normal limits in the entire region.
"A thick blanket of fog with visibility less than 350 meters in entire Punjab, Haryana, and Chandigarh almost blinded the entire region," the MeT office said here.
In the wake of poor visibility due to foggy weather, air, rail and road traffic remained adversely affected in the region, officials said.
The morning flights from Chandigarh Airport were cancelled while several trains criss-crossing the region, including, Shan-e-Punjab, Shatabdi, Paschim express and Kalka express, running hours behind schedule, officials said.
The foggy conditions also affected the power supply in some parts of the region adding to the woes of the people, officials said.
The day as well as night temperatures will continue to fall in the region in days ahead with no respite from foggy conditions, according to the MeT office forecast.
The minimum temperatures hovered between one to five degrees Celsius below normal in the region as chilling conditions confined people indoors. Narnaul was the coldest place with a low of 1.6 degrees, four notches below normal.
While Hisar settled at a low of 1.8 degrees Celsius, five notches below normal, the minimum temperature at Amritsar was 3.8 degrees Celsius. Bhiwani shivered at five degrees Celsius, followed by six degrees at Ambala, one notch below normal, 6.2 degrees at Patiala, one notch below normal, 6.5 degrees at Ludhiana and 7.4 degrees Celsius at Chandigarh.