Delhi Set To Unfreeze 119-year Coldest December

Delhi: As north India continue to shiver under intense cold wave, the national capital is likely to break the 110-year record of the coldest December day on Monday with the day temperature "unusually" sticking to the cold trend. Dense fog and poor visibility have caused flight delays and cancellations across north India in the past few days.

Dense fog has been blanketing the region since the wee hours, making the visibility zero at several places. It covered Delhi's cantonment area and a minimum temperature of 2.5°C was recorded in the national capital on December 29.

"It may be noted that at the Safdarjung Observatory, in the last 118 years (since 1901) the lowest maximum day temperature recorded was 11.3 degrees Celsius on December 28, 1997. It may be broken today (Monday) in the next 3 hours," the IMD said in a series of tweets.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the temperature till 2.30 p.m. at Safdarjung was 9.4 degrees Celsius, Palam 9 degrees Celsius, Ayanagar 7.8 degrees Celsius, Delhi Ridge 8.4 degrees Celsius and Lodi Road 9.2 degrees Celsius.

The minimum temperature recorded at the Safdarjung was 2.6 degrees Celsius, Palam 2.9 degrees Celsius and Lodhi Road 2.2 at degrees Celsius.

In the morning, the national capital region (NCR) was enveloped in a thick blanket of fog, which reduced the visibility and affected air traffic and vehicular movement.

The air quality index (AQI) in the capital on Monday was 449 with particulate matter (PM) 2.5, the Met officials said.

At the same time, Amritsar (Punjab) recorded 2.8 degrees Celsius, Ambala (Haryana) 4.4 degrees Celsius, Jaipur (Rajasthan) 2 degrees Celsius, Agra (UP) 2.4 degrees and Gaya (Bihar) 3.8 degrees Celsius.