New Delhi

The cold weather is likely to intensify in northwest India, including Delhi, during the next three days while isolated areas of some states may witness foggy mornings and evenings, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.

According to the IMD, the ongoing intense precipitation spell over Western Himalayan Region and adjoining plains will continue during the next 24 hours and significantly decrease thereafter. The weather agency said that Western Disturbance as a cyclonic circulation lies over north Pakistan and the neighbourhood in lower and middle tropospheric levels. It also said the induced cyclonic circulation lies over northeast Rajasthan and neighboring areas at lower tropospheric levels.

The confluence of winds from Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal at lower tropospheric levels is very likely over central and east India during the next 4-5 days. "Under its influence, scattered to fairly widespread light/moderate rainfall/snowfall is very likely over Western Himalayan Region till 10th and decreases significantly thereafter. Isolated heavy rainfall/snowfall is very likely over Himachal Pradesh on January 9," the IMD said.

It further forecasts that isolated to scattered rainfall is very likely to continue over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and West Uttar Pradesh on Sunday and decrease thereafter. Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall very likely over East Uttar Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh during January 9-12.

For Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Odisha, the IMD predicted scattered to fairly widespread rainfall during January 11-13.

In northeast India, scattered to widespread rainfall is very likely over Arunachal Pradesh during January 11-13, and scattered to fairly widespread rainfall may occur over Assam and Meghalaya and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura on January 12-13.

The IMD said that in the past 24 hours isolated hailstorms occurred over Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Vidarbha while minimum temperatures remained above normal by 3-5 degrees Celsius over many parts of northwest and central India and near normal over the remaining parts of North India.

There was a very dense fog in isolated pockets over eastern Bihar in the last 24 hours while dense fog engulfed isolated pockets of northeast Rajasthan, it added.