JOIN USThe national capital witnessed the first dense fog of the season on Wednesday, resulting in low visibility at many areas, affecting flight and train services and vehicular movement.
The fog reduced the visibility at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) to below 100 metres and several departures and arrivals were hit. While 15 flights (14 domestic and one international) were diverted, 47 flights were delayed and one was cancelled due to bad weather.
The airport had general fog formation from 3 am till 11:30 am with dense fog during 7:30-9 am when flights were severely affected.
Similarly, around 70 Delhi-bound trains from Patna, Howrah, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi and other places were delayed, owing to low visibility, 35 were rescheduled, and four trains were cancelled.
Except Gurgaon, all of Delhi-NCR reported sudden occurrences of dense fog on Wednesday. Experts said the fog was mainly due to sudden changes in meteorological conditions.
The minimum temperature was recorded at 11 degrees Celsius, one degree more than the normal for this part of the season, while the maximum temperature was recorded at 28.5 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal.
Airports shut
Meanwhile, Lucknow and Varanasi airports were closed for around 13 hours as the fog intensified, reducing visibility to zero or 50 metres. However, according to forecast, the fog may not remain after Thursday.
“The most likely scenario is that this dense fog spell may be taken as an isolated case of a day or two-day occurrence for two-three hours and there is no indication that the main fog season has started. It may not continue after December 1 morning in Delhi when we expect some hours of dense fog at IGIA,” said Rajendra Jenamani, Head, IGIA, MeT.
He added that the major reason why such fog will not stay for long in dense fog form is that the night temperature may not fall and it may further rise up to two degrees Celsius.