Some late morning showers sent people scurrying for cover in parts of the Indian capital Friday even as the sun peeked out of the winter clouds to add some warmth.
Winter's grip on northern India continues though the freezing air has lost some of its bite of the past week. After a long time some people were seen with their sweaters "tied around their necks".
"It is refreshing to walk around the lush green Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in the mornings and evenings nowadays. I can walk on for hours without shivering," said Vikas Pant, a student of the university.
Tea stalls continued to attract huge crowds throughout the day as people sought some steaming respite.
The capital recorded a minimum temperature of 7 degrees Celsius Friday. The maximum temperature clung to Thursday's high of 22 degrees Celsius.
"The weather has just reached 'normal' levels from the 'below normal' days," said an official of the India Meteorological Department here. "That doesn't mean it's time to pack-up the jackets and pullovers yet," he said.
According to the official, Saturday morning could again see some light rain or thundershowers and some parts of the city will also see fog descending.
The official forecast that the minimum temperature would continue to hover around 7 degrees Celsius Saturday.
There was no respite from the cold in the rest of northern India. In Shimla, after a snowfall set off by a blizzard in the wee hours, there was bright sunshine as the day wore on and the mercury hit a maximum of 9 degrees Celsius.
Life was thrown out of gear in the Himachal Pradesh capital as water pipes froze. There was widespread power failure, and roadblocks affected traffic flow at various places.
Tourists in the city were thrilled with the unexpected bonanza of snow, but office goers did not have it so easy as they trudged through 30 cm of snow.
Vehicles travelling on NH-22 - the Hindustan-Tibet national highway leading to the resorts of Kufri and Narkanda - were clogged, and thin traffic resumed on the Kalka-Shimla highway only around noon.
Conditions were better in Dehradun where the maximum temperature recorded was 19 degrees Celsius. Chandigarh fared even better with 20.6 degrees.