LAHORE, Dec 23: Icy winds along with thick fog brought winter’s true colours to Lahore on Sunday, with people preferring to remain indoors and wear warm clothes.

Fog blanketed the city in the morning and after the midday respite again started developing in the evening, reducing visibility to 200 meters at 8pm.

The minimum temperature last night was 3.5 degrees Celsius. The temperature went up to a maximum of 17.2 degrees Celsius as sunshine warmed the chill-stricken city from 10am to the afternoon. Cold winds nevertheless began dominating the city afterwards.

Fog began developing and thickening in the evening dropping the temperature to 8 degrees Celsius at 8pm. And the Met office said it would further drop during the night.

Driving motorcycles in the foggy night became extremely difficult while cars were also witnessed moving at a slower speed and in queues, many of them using anti-fog lights to avoid accidents.

The Met Office also reported thick fog in Gujranwala region and said it might also cover other cities in the plains of the country in the coming days.

National highway and motorway authorities warned people against traveling on the fog-bound motorway and on the national highway between Lahore and Islamabad during the night to avoid accidents.

Weather became extremely cold over the upper parts of the country also because of dipping of temperatures. The minimum temperature in Skardu dropped to -15 degrees Celsius. It was -10 degrees Celsius in Parachinar, -8 in Astore, -7 in Kalam and -6 in Gilgit and Hunza.

The Met Office forecast rain with light snowfall in the hills over Malakand division and Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir during the next 24 hours.