As a brutal cold wave swept the northern part of India, mercury in Delhi dropped to 3 degrees Celsius, on Thursday morning. With people huddling around bonfires, the national capital recorded the lowest temperature of the season and in the last two years.
A layer of fog, which has also been reported for the past few days, continued, with Delhi airport announcing that Low Visibility Procedures are in progress.
Tweeting an advisory the official handle of Indira Gandhi International Airport alerted all flyers urging them to contact their respective airlines for updates on delays.
The visibility was recorded at 50 metres in Safdarjung at 5:30 am on Thursday.
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On Wednesday, a numbing cold gripped Delhi with the day temperature settling several notches below normal and the minimum temperature plunging to 4.4 degrees Celsius - the season's lowest -- making the national capital colder than Dharamsala, Nainital and Dehradun.
Residents turned to space heaters and cups of hot tea and coffee to keep themselves warm as frosty winds from the snow-clad Himalayas barrelled through the plains, including Delhi.
The cold snap is expected to strain power grids and pose challenges to homeless people.
The Met Office has issued an orange alert for Delhi-NCR for the next two days.
The IMD uses four colour codes for weather warnings -- green (no action needed), yellow (watch and stay updated), orange (be prepared) and red (take action).
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The Safdarjung observatory, Delhi's primary weather station, saw the minimum temperature plummet to 4.4 degrees Celsius from 8.5 degrees a day ago.
On Wednesday, weather stations at Lodhi Road, Palam, Jafarpur, and Najafgarh recorded a 'cold day'.
