In North India, on Sunday (December 21, 2025), severe cold chilled people and at other places a dense blanket of fog slowed down the pace. Due to snowfall in the highlands of North India and rain in the plains, the mercury dropped in Jammu and Kashmir, while the cold wave increased in Punjab and Haryana and visibility was affected due to fog in some parts of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted heavy snowfall in the higher reaches of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and northeastern Himachal Pradesh and rain along with snow at some places till Monday (December 22, 2025).
According to IMD, Palam, one of the major weather monitoring centres, recorded a minimum visibility of 300 meters due to moderate fog between 10 pm on Saturday (December 20, 2025) and 12:30 pm on Sunday. The IMD said visibility increased to 600 meters due to light fog, but dropped again to 350 meters due to winds blowing from east-southeast direction at a speed of 7 km per hour.
Light rain and snowfall in Kashmir
Officials said snowfall occurred in Gulmarg, located in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district, where about two inches of snow has accumulated. He said that snowfall started in Sonamarg located on the Srinagar-Kargil highway on the morning of Sunday (December 21), which was continuing till the last information was received. Sadhna Top, which connects the Tangdhar sector near the LoC to the main Kashmir valley, has received moderate snowfall since Saturday (December 20) night, due to which about six inches of snow has accumulated. Officials said light rain started overnight in Srinagar and other parts of the valley and continued intermittently.
There will be severe cold in many areas from Himachal to Punjab and Haryana.
At the same time, moderate to heavy snowfall is expected at some places in Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti districts of Himachal Pradesh. According to IMD, dense fog is expected at some places in Una, Bilaspur (Bhakhra Dam Reserve) and Mandi (Balh Valley) districts during the late night and morning of 21 and 22 December. Whereas many areas of Punjab and Haryana experienced severe cold on Sunday (December 21) and dense fog was seen in many areas of both the states.
At the same time, Narnaul was the coldest place in Haryana, where the mercury fell to 5.2 degrees Celsius. Whereas, Gurdaspur was the coldest place in Punjab, where the minimum temperature was recorded at 6.8 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature in Chandigarh was 8.8 degrees Celsius.
Dense fog will prevail in UP and Rajasthan – IMD
IMD said that there was very dense fog in some parts of Uttar Pradesh, due to which visibility was reduced to less than 50 meters. The department predicted that there will be dense to very dense fog in some areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh during night and morning hours till December 23. At the same time, a slight increase in temperature has been recorded in Rajasthan, although the night temperature at most places still remains below 10 degrees Celsius. The weather department gave this information. The minimum temperature in Fatehpur, Sikar was recorded at 8.9 degrees Celsius, which was 5.4 degrees Celsius on Friday.
Yellow alert issued for many districts of Jharkhand
IMD has issued an alert on Sunday (December 21) regarding cold and dense fog in some parts of Jharkhand. The minimum temperature has been recorded below 10 degrees Celsius in many districts of the state. IMD said that a yellow alert regarding cold has been issued for Garhwa, Palamu, Chatra, Latehar and Lohardaga districts till 8.30 am on Monday (22 December). Dense fog alert has been issued in 15 districts including Garhwa, Palamu, Chatra, Hazaribagh, Koderma, Giridih, Deoghar, Ranchi, Ramgarh, Bokaro, Dhanbad and Khunti.
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