Schools in Noida, and Greater Noida under the Gautam Buddha Nagar district, and Ghaziabad district will remain closed on Thursday and Friday due to extreme cold weather conditions, the district magistrate said. The announcement came on Wednesday when the national Capital recorded the coldest day of the season with minimum temperature recorded at 7 degrees Celsius.

“All schools up to class 12th in Greater Noida/ Noida will remain shut on Thursday and Friday due to cold waves/cold day and extreme weather conditions,” the circular said.

Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said that schools will be shut for classes from nursery to Class 12 due to “cold wave conditions”, Mint reported.

The India Meteorological Department predicted partly cloudy skies with a severe cold wave for Thursday morning, however this weather condition may subside towards the latter part of the day. “Cold day conditions are likely to abated from Thursday onwards and there will be increase in maximum and minimum temperature over Delhi-NCR [National Capital Region] as western disturbance will start affecting over plains of North West India from December 20,” an unidentified weather department official told PTI.

Meanwhile, depleted air quality levels were recorded in Delhi. The Central Pollution Control Board recorded overall pollution levels at 321 as of 7 am on Thursday while the real-time air quality index was recorded at 313, according to System for Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research or SAFAR. The CPCB index typically differs from that of SAFAR because it averages values for 24 hours.

All the CPCB monitoring stations in Delhi recorded air pollution levels between “very poor” and “poor” as of 8.30 am. The SAFAR prediction on Wednesday said that a decrease in wind speed may be seen in the next two days, according to Hindustan Times.