New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS): With chilly winds blowing since morning, the national capital on Tuesday shivered as it saw the season's lowest temperature with the maximum temperature settling at 17.8 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season's average, the Met office said.

It has forecast that the mercury could go down further in the forthcoming days as the atmosphere is being directly affected by the snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal due to wester disturbances.

"The mercury dropped by 2.8 degrees in last 24 hours (since Monday) and is expected to drop further," said an official of the India Meteorological Department.

The official said there would be clear sky with mist or shallow fog in the morning on Wednesday while the maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to hover around 16 and 4 degrees Celsius respectively.

The IMD forecast no rain and predicted the cold wave was only likely to mellow down from January 13, (Friday) onwards.

The city wake up with a chilly Tuesday morning as the minimum temperature recorded at 5.2 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season's average also the lowest in this season while the humidity oscillated between 100 and 52 per cent.

The visibility at 8.30 a.m. was 1,200 metres at Safdarjung and 250 metres at Palam.

As per private weather forecaster, the mercury will further drop in Delhi by 4 degrees as there is cold wave-like condition the city along with National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana and Rajasthan.

"For Delhi, temperature will drop further on Wednesday. In Rajasthan's Ganganagar and Churu, the temperature was recorded 1 and 2 degrees respectively. The minimum temperature will rise from January 14 when dry south easterly winds would start in northern part of India," Skymet Director Mahesh Palawat told IANS.

The minimum temperature on January 10, 2016 was 13 degrees, while it was 7 degrees Celsius in 2015 and five degrees in 2014, respectively.