At 3.2°C, City Beautiful records the coldest night of the year

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 24

With the minimum temperature touching the 3.2°C mark, the city recorded Tuesday night as the coldest night of the year. The Met Department said there would be no relief from the chilly weather conditions in the coming days and the visibility would be further reduced due to dense fog. The maximum temperature recorded today was 19.8°C.

Due to dense fog in the morning, normal movement of the air and rail traffic was adversely affected as there was poor visibility in and around the periphery of the city. According to sources at the city railway station, 13 trains were running behind schedule today.

Four flights — three Delhi-bound flights of Jet Airways and one Delhi-bound flight of Spicejet — were cancelled from the Chandigarh airport.

Met Director Surinder Pal Singh said there would be dry, cold and chilly weather during the whole week. By the end of this week, the visibility in the city would be reduced to 50 metres due to dense fog. He said in 2011, the city had recorded 0.8°C at night and there were chances that by the end of this week, city residents would experience similar weather conditions.

For the third consecutive day, passengers of the morning Shatabdi (12011) from New Delhi to Kalka reached five hours late at the Chandigarh station. Sailing in the same boat were hundreds of passengers who boarded the morning Kalka-New Delhi Shatabdi, which reached the New Delhi station over two hours late.

Other trains that got delayed included the Unchahar Express (14217), which arrived 19 hours behind schedule, train number 14218, which departed around five hours late from the station, the Lucknow-Chandigarh Express (15011), which arrived around four hours late, train number 15012, which departed two and a half hours hours behind schedule, the Howrah-Chandigarh train (12311), which arrived 11 hours late, the Sadbhavana Express (12231), which arrived 10 hours late, and train number 12232, which arrived over 11 hours behind schedule at the station.

Among the other long-route trains that were affected due to fog were the Garib Rath (12983), which was four and a half hours late, the Paschim Express (2925), which was three hours late, the Kranti Express (12217), which was also three hours late, the Madurai-Chandigarh train (22687), which was 10 hours and 50 minutes late, the Dibrugarh train (15903), which was seven hours late, and the Shirdi-Kalka train (22455) which was seven hours late.