Chandigarh:
Cold conditions continued to prevail in Punjab and Haryana where heavy fog affected movement of vehicles at several places.
With minimum temperatures plummeting to a few notches below normal, dense fog engulfed the region, which resulted in low visibility at many places, a MeT department report said.
Narnaul in Haryana was the coldest place in the region as it recorded a minimum temperature of 3.5 degrees Celsius, down by three degrees below normal.
Ambala recorded a low of 8.2 degrees Celsius while Hisar and Karnal shivered at 6 degrees Celsius and 6.6 degrees Celsius respectively.
Bhiwani's minimum temperature was recorded at 5.8 degrees Celsius.
In Punjab, Amritsar's low settled at 3.6 degrees Celsius while Ludhiana and Patiala recorded a minimum temperature of 7.8 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius respectively.
Chandigarh's low settled at 7.8 degrees Celsius.
MeT department has predicted that dense fog will prevail at several places in both the states for the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, in view of the intense cold wave and extreme weather conditions, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced that the winter break in government schools across the state would be pre-poned to December 20, instead of December 25 as declared earlier.
All the Punjab Government schools would remain closed from today till December 31, said an official.