Punjab and Haryana were in the grip of cold wave conditions on Sunday, with the minimum temperature hovering below normal at most places.

Dense fog also engulfed the region on Sunday.

Road and railway traffic was affected due to low visibility, which reduced to less than 50 metres at several places. Traffic on highways was plying slow, the police said.

The Amritsar-Ambala-Delhi stretch of the National Highway-1 (NH-1) was the worst affected due to dense fog at several places.

A Met official said, fog reduced visibility in the morning hours at Ambala, Hisar, Karnal, Narnaul, Bhiwani, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Patiala

The minimum temperature in Chandigarh was recorded at 6.6 degrees Celsius, three degrees below the average.

In Punjab, Adampur was the coldest place recording a minimum temperature of 3.8 degrees Celsius. Amritsar recorded the night temperature at five degrees Celsius, while it was 6.7 degrees in Ludhiana, 7.6 degrees in Patiala and 7.7 degrees in Gurdaspur.

In neighbouring Haryana, it was 6.2 degrees in Ambala, 5.5 in Narnaul, 5.2 degrees in Sirsa, 5.3 degrees in Hisar and six degrees in Karnal.

Meanwhile, a day after Himachal Pradesh’s popular tourist destination Shimla and its nearby destinations received snowfall pushing down the temperatures by several notches, they saw sunny morning on Sunday. While Shimla saw a light spell of snowfall on Saturday evening, nearby places like Kufri and Narkanda experienced moderate snowfall, according to a Met official.

Kufri, which experienced a low of minus 4.6 degrees Celsius, had 3 cm snow. Keylong, the headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti recorded a low of minus 14.6 degrees C, while it was minus 8.4 degrees C in Kalpa in Kinnaur district.

Shimla recorded a low of 0.6 degree Celsius, while it was 2.4 degrees C below freezing point in Dalhousie and 2.2 degrees Celsius in Dharamsala.

The Met Department said that many places in Himachal would again experience snowfall on January 21 while parts of Punjab and Haryana are expected to receive rainfall.