College students have gola in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Jan. 7: The chill is spreading its wings in Bihar. Till Thursday, four places were under the grip of the cold wave. The number went up to 13 today, with Gaya being the coldest with a minimum temperature of 2.5°C.

The capital, under a thick blanket of fog, recorded a minimum temperature of 5.2°C. The foggy condition adversely affected the flight operations for the second consecutive day today. GoAir’s Delhi-Patna-Delhi flight was cancelled. The services of other airlines, including Air India, IndiGo and Jet Airways, also got adversely affected as the visibility improved only in the afternoon. The first flight landed at Patna after 2.30pm.

Besides the fog, the residents of the capital had to battle the chilly breeze today. The residents of other parts of the state also shivered in cold.

The human resource development department would review the weather conditions on Sunday to decide on when the schools would reopen.

With the minimum temperature in Gaya dipping more than six degrees below normal, it became a cold wave-hit place. The minimum temperature at 12 other places, including Patna, Dehri-on-Sone (4.2°C), Sabaur (5°C), Chhapra (4.6°C), Banka (5.2°C), Bhabhua (4.8°C), Bhojpur (4.9°C), Buxar (4.6°C), Gandhar (3.2), Harnaut (4.4°C), Sasaram (5.2°C) and Nawada (4.2°C), were also under the grip of cold wave.

Even the daytime temperature at most places in the state hovered below the normal, making life tough for the residents. Patna recorded a maximum of just 16°C, about 7°C below the normal temperature. The maximum temperature at Gaya, Bhagalpur and Purnea were 18.5°C, 15.5°C and 18.2°C.

The north-westerly surface wind added to the woes of the residents. It blew at a speed of about 6km per hour today.

“The wind is blowing at this speed because of the high pressure area in the northern and eastern India and the low pressure belt over the Bay of Bengal. The pattern of the wind is likely to be the same in the next 48 hours,” a source in the local weather office said.

The source maintained the residents of the state would not get much respite from the cold conditions in the next two days. The weatherman also said the foggy condition would prevail in the morning hours and the sun would not shine brightly because of the presence of mist in the atmosphere.

According to the disaster management department headquarters, no casualty has been reported so far in the state because of the cold.