Girls enjoy boating in the sun at Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park in Patna on Thursday. Picture Ashok Sinha

Patna, Jan. 13: After bearing harsh cold conditions for the past 10 days, residents in most parts of the state today heaved a sigh of relief as sun shone bright, pushing up the day temperature.

The weathermen called it a reprieve from the “day cold” condition, which is said to be prevailing when the maximum temperature slides below 16ºC.

On Thursday, most places in Bihar recorded maximum temperature level above 16ºC. It was 20.1ºC in Patna, 23.2ºC in Gaya, 17ºC in Bhagalpur and 19.2ºC in Purnea.

Cold condition eased in other areas too. Begusarai recorded maximum 19.6ºC, Banka 20.7ºC, Bhojpur 19.2ºC, Buxar 20.3ºC, Madhubani 19.1ºC, Darbhanga 18.6ºC, Jehanabad 20.1ºC, Harnaut 20ºC, Jamui 19ºC, Katihar 18.4ºC, Madhepura 19ºC, West Champaran 18.1ºC, Munger 19.3ºC, Muzaffarpur 18.3, Nawada 21.8ºC, Sasaram 22.0ºC, Sheohar 17.8ºC, Siwan 17.1ºC and Vaishali 18.3ºC.

Morning and evening, however, were still very cold in over half-a-dozen places which are under the grip of cold wave conditions. The minimum temperature at these places remained at least 4ºC below the normal.

Sabaur near Bhagalpur was the coldest place in the state with minimum temperature dipping to 2.5ºC. Patna 4ºC, Purnea 4ºC, Muzaffarpur 5.2ºC, Dehir-on-Sone 5.4ºC, Supaul 5.8ºC, Chhapra 4.3ºC and Motihari 4ºC were the other places facing cold wave condition on Thursday.

With weathermen predicting more or less similar conditions on Friday, the residents can at least look forward to enjoying sunny afternoons. Foggy condition would prevail in the morning hours.

Sharing information about the advancement of western disturbance, Patna met office assistant meteorologist Balmukund Choudhary said: “The western disturbance is not likely to hit Bihar on Friday as was expected earlier. Going by the present weather condition, the said weather phenomena would reach the state on January 16.”

Arrival of the western disturbance would lead to an increase in the minimum temperature level and some rainfall can also take place, Choudhary said.

Poor visibility affected flight operations in the first half of the day and the first flight could land in Patna only at 12.30pm.

No flight, however, was cancelled due to poor visibility today.

GoAir’s Delhi-Patna-Delhi morning flight and IndiGo’s Bangalore-Calcutta-Patna morning flight did not operate on Thursday. However, these flights were not cancelled because of the weather or poor visibility, but for purely operational reasons and not due to poor visibility, sources at the airport told The Telegraph.