Cold wave: Northern states shiver under tough conditions

Northern states of India continue to reel under the cold wave with minimum temperatures plummeting to single digit in several regions. A thick blanket of fog has enveloped Delhi and its surrounding regions resulting in poor visibility on Tuesday.

As Delhi battles with cold wave, the overall air quality index (AQI) dropped to 430 on Tuesday, which falls under the 'severe' category.

At Dhirpur, the AQI was 724 at 8:30 am, while in Mathura Road area it dipped to 'hazardous' category at 484. Furthermore, AQI near Pitampura, Airport, Terminal 3, Delhi University stood at 459, 453 and 502 respectively. The haze and smog will continue to persist during the early morning and late evenings for the next couple of days.

As per Skytmet, a private weather forecasting agency the only ray of hope is the slight possibility of scattered rains over Delhi NCR around January 6 which may wash away the pollutants.

Apart from Delhi, severe Cold Wave conditions occurred at isolated places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Maharashtra and Marathwada.

"Yesterday, ground frost occurred at isolated pockets over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh", the IMD stated.

The Meteorological department has also predicted snowfall across popular tourist spots in Himachal Pradesh for the first day of the new year. Tourist places Shimla, Kufri, Narkanda, Dalhousie, Manali may receive snow on January 1, Met Centre, Shimla, Director Manmohan Singh had stated on Sunday.