New Delhi: Delhi woke up to a thick fog hanging over the city on Wednesday. Eight flights were delayed including three flights of Jet Airways and two each of Go Air and Air India.Delhiites shivered as the maximum temperature plummetted to 14 degree Celsius, making Tuesday the coldest day of this winter.

Icy winds blew across the city and overnight rains added to the chill in the morning hours.

Tuesday's maximum was six degree Celsius below normal and down from the previous day's 20.3 degrees while the minimum temperature was at 9.3 degree Celsius, two degrees above normal but down from Monday's 10.5 degrees.

On January 6, the maximum had dropped to 16.9 degree Celsius, the lowest maximum this season till then.

Cold wave across the country
The Jammu Srinagar National Highway is likely to reopen on Wednesday. The assurance has come from the Border Roads Organisation that is clearing the stretch. The highway has been closed for the last three days due to heavy snowfall. Many other parts of the valley have also been cut off. The temperature fell to 0.2 in Srinagar and 1.4 degrees in Qazigund.

And this time the South hasn't been spared either. An unprecendented cold wave sweeping through the region has left seven people dead in Andhra Pradesh.

Infact Karnataka experienced its coldest day in over a 100 years. The minimum temperature in Belgaum was 7.2 degrees. Bangalore was at 12 degrees.

Earlier on Tuesday, Dense fog in northern India kept rail traffic affected in the region with 16 trains running late by many hours and 39 trains cancelled.

Puri Express is running late by 17 hours while Gomti Express and Swatantra Senani Express are running 14 and 13 hours behind schedule respectively.

"We are constantly updating our website and the railway inquiry system is also being strengthened to inform passengers about the train position," said a senior Northern Railway official.

With Additional Inputs from Agencies

CNN IBN January 18^th 2012.