Chandigarhians on Sunday wake up to the season’s coldest morning with dense fog, forcing most of the people to stay in the comfort of their homes only on a holiday.

Temperatures across Punjab and Haryana were close to the freezing point at several places, with the weather officials predicting that there were chances of rain this week.“Chandigarh saw the coldest night at 2.9 degrees Celsius, a drastic fall from Saturday’s 5.1 degrees,” an official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Sunday was the 12th consecutive day of severe cold day in Chandigarh, and the minimum was three notches below normal. As per the IMD records, the city saw longest severe cold spell of 22 days in 2007.

In December 2018, the night temperature of Chandigarh had dipped to 3.4 degrees Celsius.Dense fog left passengers in a lurch at the Chandigarh and Amritsar international airports with several flights delayed, the officials said. Likewise, several trains were running much behind schedule.

The ongoing longest cold wave conditions are likely to continue in Punjab and Haryana, said the Met department officials.Hisar and Narnaul towns in Haryana recorded minimum temperatures of 0.2 degrees and 1.5 degrees Celsius, respectively. Rohtak and Sirsa saw a low of 1.6 degrees and 1.8 degrees, respectively.

Minimum temperatures in most places were between 0.2 degrees to 5.6 degrees.In Punjab, the Sikh holy city of Amritsar and industrial hub Ludhiana saw a low of 4.4 degrees each and Bathinda 4.8 degrees.  Adampur was the coldest in the state with a low of one degree. In Punjab and Haryana, the prevailing maximum temperatures were three-10 notches below the normal.

The weather office said that there are chances of rainfall in the region on the New Year Day.