National capital Delhi and the whole of north India continues to reel under severe cold as the temperature plummeted further, claiming more 
lives in the past few days.
The maximum temperature was at 20.6 degrees Celsius while the minimum was recorded at 6.2 degrees Celsius, two degrees below the normal level, the Meteorological department said.
Freezing cold conditions continued to sweep most places in Punjab and Haryana with Adampur reeling at 1.1 degrees Celsius. Adampur in Punjab was the coldest place in the two states, though the minimum temperature of the town in Jalandhar district witnessed a slight increase over yesterday’s low of minus 1.2 deg C.
Ludhiana recorded the season’s coldest night so far as minimum temperature dipped further today to settle at 1.6 deg C, down five notches than normal.
Amritsar, too, braved a cold night at 3 deg C, while Patiala reeled at a low of 4 deg C, down three degrees, the MeT office here said.
While sun has been shining here brightly for the past three days, the night temperatures have witnessed a steady drop.
Today, Chandigarh recorded the season’s coldest night so far at 3.8 deg C, down two notches.
Piercing cold continued to sweep Haryana as well with Hisar recording a bone-chilling low of 1.7 deg C, down four notches.
Ambala recorded a low of 5 deg C, while Narnaul also experienced a cold night at 3.9 deg C, down two degrees. Bhiwani’s minimum settled at 5.4 deg C.
A MeT official said here that fog had lifted from most places in the two states and the weather was clear since yesterday.
He said that cold conditions would continue in the region during the next few days.
Cold wave today further tightened its grip in Kashmir as mercury dipped by several degrees in most parts of the Valley with Kargil, in Ladakh region, recording the coldest night of the winter so far.
Kargil, in the frontier Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, recorded the coldest night of the season at minus 15.7 degrees Celsius, a drop of almost seven degrees from the previous nights low of minus 8.9 degrees Celsius, an official of the MeT Department here said.
The town was also the coldest place in the state. The nearby Leh town registered a minimum temperature of minus 14.8 degrees Celsius last night as against minus 14.1 degrees Celsius the previous night.
The night temperature in Srinagar, the summer capital of the state, dropped over two degrees to settle at a low of minus 0.6 degree Celsius as compared to 1.8 degrees Celsius the previous night.
The night temperature in Pahalgam hill resort, which serves as a base camp during the annual Amarnath yatra, plummeted by over seven degrees to settle at a low of minus 9.6 degrees Celsius as compared to the previous night’s minus 2.4 degrees Celsius.
The famous ski-resort of Gulmarg registered a drop of over a degree in the minimum temperature as the mercury settled at a low of minus 8.6 degrees Celsius as compared to minus 7.4 degrees Celsius the previous night.
Qazigund, the gateway town to the Kashmir Valley, recorded a low of 0.2 degrees Celsius, same as the previous night, the official said.
Kokernag, in south Kashmir, which recorded a low of minus 0.2 degree Celsius the previous night, registered a low of minus 3.0 degrees Celsius last night.
Kupwara, in north Kashmir, recorded a minimum of minus 3.4 degrees Celsius as compared to minus 3.0 degrees Celsius the previous night.
Kashmir Valley is currently going through ‘Chillai-Kalan’, considered as the harshest 40-day winter period, which started on December 21.
However, the MeT Department has said the weather in the Valley would mainly remain dry for the next 24 hours and there would not be any change in it for the next few days.