Chandigarh/New Delhi, January 11
Keylong in Himachal Pradesh was shivering at minus 12.9 °C, while the night temperatures in adjoining Punjab and Haryana again showed a downward trend, providing little respite from the cold wave sweeping the North west.

There was no let-up in the biting cold conditions in Jammu and Kashmir even as the temperature in Srinagar was a surprising several degrees above normal.

Pahalgam was the coldest in Kashmir as the minimum dipped to minus 8.5°C. Ladakh region recorded the minimum temperature at minus 10°C to minus 20°C this morning.

Nights in Leh remained cold with the mercury touching a low of minus 14°C while it was minus 15°C in Kargil and minus 20°C in Drass, the second coldest place in the world after Siberia.

The higher reaches of Lahaul and Spiti, Kangra and Mandi districts received light snowfall. Dharamsala and Sundernagar in Himachal Paresh were lashed by rain last night.

The Met office forecast rain or snow in the hill state in the next 24 hours.

In Delhi, the maximum temperature, however, registered a little drop to 21°C from 21.3°C yesterday. Visibility levels in the city, meanwhile, continued to be normal at 700m this morning.

In the North West plains, Bathinda was the coldest at 2.4°C. The minimum in the holy city of Amritsar continued to be low at 2.9°C, two degree below normal. The minimum in Ludhiana was 6.6°C while at Patiala it was 5.2°C, two degrees below normal.

In Haryana, the coldest place was Narnaul at 5°C. The minimum remained static at 8.4°C at Chandigarh where the residents woke up to a foggy morning but as the day progressed the fog lifted giving way to a warm sunny day.

Mostly dry weather prevailed in Rajasthan, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. — UNI