New Delhi: Minimum temperatures registered a dip, bringing slight respite from mounting cold in north India where dense fog continued to throw normal life out of gear, hitting air and rail traffic.
Delhi witnessed a marginal rise in the minimum, which stood three degrees above normal at 10.8 degrees Celsius.
The maximum was 22.4 degrees in the national capital, which is normal for the time of the year.
Delhiites also got some respite from foggy conditions today after witnessing a dense fog cover for the past three days, which severely affected road, rail and air traffic.
There was some relief from the chill for the northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir as well with the mercury in most parts of the Valley, including in the summer capital of Srinagar, improving to settle near freezing point.
The minimum in Srinagar was at -0.4 degrees Celsius as against the -1.2 degrees recorded yesterday.
But Kupwara in north Kashmir recorded a dip of three degrees as the mercury settled at -3.0 degrees as against 0.1 degrees the day before.
Leh in Ladakh continued to be the coldest recorded place in the state with a low of -12.2 degrees.
Lower down, Punjab and Haryana were under a dense fog cover, which posed problems at several places across the two neighbouring states even as both recorded a slight increase in temperatures.
The common capital of Chandigarh saw the minimum settling at 7.8 degrees and experienced heavy night-time fog.
Visibility levels dropped to below 50m in the morning in Patiala, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Phagwara, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Hisar, Karnal, and Ambala, among other places.
Train schedules were thrown out of gear with the New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi delayed by close to 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, an undertrial died in the Gurdaspur Central Jail in Punjab as a result of the cold, police said.
The undertrial, Haqim Singh, breathed his last at a hospital to where he was shifted after complaining of uneasiness due to cold, police added.
