Schools were closed in a few districts of Madhya Pradesh on Friday as the intense cold spell continued across the state, officials said. The lowest temperature was recorded at 0.2 degree Celsius in Nowgong town of Chhatarpur district in the morning, said H S Pandey, a senior official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) office.
Traffic on the roads was thin in many parts of the state while people were seen huddling around bonfires. Schools up to Class 8 remained closed in some districts including Bhopal, Indore, Vidisha and Ujjain on the orders of the local administration.
Dense fog was reported in Guna, Satna, Datia, Jabalpur, Sagar and Chhatarpur districts, while moderate fog covered areas of Gwalior, Rewa districts and Nowgaon town in Chhatarpur district.
The minimum temperatures in Bhopal and Indore were recorded at 7.3 and 10.6 degrees Celsius. Minimum temperatures in the state hovered near 7 degrees Celsius for the fifth day in a row, Pandey said.
Foggy and chilly weather prevailed in north and north-east MP. Datia, Khajuraho, Guna, Gwalior and Sagar ciites saw minimum temperatures of 2.5, 2.6, 3.0, 4.2 and 4.6 degrees Celsius, respectively. Northerly winds following snowfall in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir brought the temperatures down in MP, the IMD official said.
The cold spell is expected to continue for three more days, he said.
