The Met office, however, refused to term this as the onset of winter which, it claims, is still quite some time away and instead attributed the rains to the usual suspect - western disturbances. Incidentally it is this same western disturbance which had been earlier blamed for the high temperatures over the past few days as, according to the Met office, every western disturbance is preceded by warm southern winds.

Whatever be the reason, the chill in the air was reason enough for Delhiites to celebrate by venturing out of their homes and, by late afternoon, weekend-like crowds could be seen at popular places like India Gate and Janpath. In fact the weather did not prove to be a dampener at all with over 1 lakh people turning up for the India International Trade Fair which was way higher than what the fair officials had expected for a weekday.

Even elsewhere, several places in J & K, Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh woke up to this season's first snowfall with mountain resorts like Gulmarg covered in almost a foot deep snow. In Simla the winds got so icy that people were forced to stay indoors giving usually crowded hotspots, like the Mall and Scandal Point, a deserted look. Tourists had a gala time at places like Kufri and Narkanda which received this season's first snowfall and with more snow predicted for the next few days, head to the hills if you want to have some fun throwing snowballs.