"Ten more persons died of cold in the last two days," police spokesman Surendra Srivastava told AFP in Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.

"All the dead are beggars and lived under the open sky," Srivastava said.

In Lucknow, the temperature dropped to six degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit), six degrees below normal for this time of year.

Weather officials forecast that temperatures in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with 180 million people and one of its poorest, were likely to drop further.

"Snowfall is expected in the Himalaya region in the next 48 hours," said R.K. Verma, director of the state's weather department. "Snowfall in the hills will further intensify the cold wave situation in the plains."

The nighttime temperature in the city of Agra, home to the famed Taj Mahal, fell to just above three degrees Celsius, almost seven degrees below normal.

The winter takes a heavy toll each year around South Asia, as poverty forces many homeless people to live outdoors or in flimsy shacks designed for the equally deadly hot summers. Most of the 27 dead in Uttar Pradesh were homeless.

The state government has ordered that bonfires be lit at major street crossings so that the homeless can warm up.