New Delhi:
Delhi remained under a spell of shivering cold on Tuesday with low temperatures and icy winds making life difficult for the people even as a young man died on a city street apparently due to the biting chill.
This morning was not much better than Monday's when the capital witnessed its coldest day of the season so far.
The minimum temperature overnight was recorded at 8.2 degrees Celsius which is a degree above normal and only marginally above Monday's minimum of 7.8 degrees while the maximum was at 14.7 degrees, up by 0.1 degrees from the previous day.
An overcast sky during the morning hours prevented the sun from offering any solace to the people.
Not much is expected to improve over the next 24 hours.
The Met Department said the minimum and maximum temperatures are likely to be around 7 degrees and 16 degrees Celsius respectively. "There could be mist or shallow fog in the morning," a senior MeT official said.
A man in his early thirties was found dead near a pillar in east Delhi's Akshardam by a passerby, a senior police official said. His identity is yet to be established.
"He was wearing a trouser and a torn shirt. He apparently died to cold as there were no injuries to suggest that it was an unnatural death," the official said.
The victim, who appears to be a labourer, was rushed to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital where he was declared dead.
This is the second case of cold-related death reported in the capital. Earlier on December 26, an unidentified man was found dead near a Metro pillar in west Delhi's Tilak Nagar.
Last year, the month of January recorded the lowest minimum of 5.6 degrees Celsius in the first week of the year.
According to MeT statistics, the record for the highest maximum for the month of January was 32.5 degree Celsius recorded on the 28th of 2004. The record minimum is -0.6 degree Celsius recorded on 16th of the month in 1935.
In the last decade, only last year the minimum did not drop below five degree Celsius. In 2006, the minimum dropped to 0.2 degrees on January eight while two years later, the lowest minimum was 1.9 degrees on 2nd of the month.
The mean minimum for the month of January is 7.3 degree Celsius while the mean maximum is 21.1 degrees.