New Delhi has suffered its coldest day in 44 years amid a cold snap across northern India, the local weather office said on Thursday.

The maximum day temperature on Wednesday reached just 9.8 degrees Celsius (49.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest since the winter of 1969 when records first began, an official in the local meteorological department told AFP, with a minimum of 4.8 Celsius.

There is expected to be little respite in the coming few days with the weather office forecasting that chilly conditions will prevail.

The unusual cold has been attributed to dense fog which has obscured the sun and disrupted airports and trains, as well as icy winds from the snowy Himalayas to the north.

Winter in the Indian capital, home to 16.3 million people, usually lasts through January before giving way to spring and summer, when temperatures regularly rise to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

As globe warms, Alaska is cooling down
Fairbanks, Alaska (UPI) Jan 2, 2012 -Despite a global trend of warming climate, Alaska has been experiencing a widespread cooling pattern for at least a decade, scientists say.

In the first decade since 2000, the state has cooled an average of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the online newspaper Alaska Dispatch reported.

That's a "large value for a decade," the Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a report published in the Atmospheric Science Journal.

Cooling temperatures have been recorded at 19 of the 20 National Weather Service stations spread throughout Alaska, the report said.

Parts of Western Alaska saw temperatures drop a significant 4.5 degrees for the decade, it said.

Researchers said the cooling was likely caused by an ocean phenomenon known as the Decadal Oscillation that moved colder surface water temperatures closer to Alaska.

Researchers said it is unknown how long the cooling trend might last, although they noted the state experienced thirty years of relative cold climate starting in the mid-1940s.