Delhi experienced its chilliest morning of the winter season on Sunday, as the minimum temperature plunged to 3.5 degrees Celsius, reaching an even lower 3.4 degrees Celsius in the Lodhi Road area. Widespread fog enveloped Delhi-NCR, severely limiting visibility on roads, and reducing it to zero.
The dense fog disrupted the schedules of 22 trains bound for Delhi from various parts of the country. Additionally, operations at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport were significantly impacted due to the adverse foggy conditions.
IndiGo Airlines, acknowledging the prevailing weather challenges in northern India, warned of potential interruptions in its flight schedules. Yesterday, Delhi had already recorded a minimum temperature of 3.6 degrees Celsius. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) anticipates that dense fog and the prevailing cold wave conditions will persist in parts of northwest India for the next 3-4 days, until January 16.
For the first time this winter season, areas from Amritsar to Dibrugarh, spanning Ganganagar, Patiala, Ambala, Chandigarh, Palam, Safdarjung, Bareilly, Lucknow, Bahraich, Varanasi, Prayagraj, and Assam's Tezpur, reported zero visibility. A satellite image of North India highlighted dense fog covering Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, North Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
Late on Saturday, the IMD issued a forecast, indicating moderate fog in isolated pockets of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and northwest Madhya Pradesh, with shallow fog in isolated pockets of Chandigarh, Delhi, and Assam.
The weather department predicts dense to very dense fog on the current day, along with dense fog on January 15 and 16. According to the IMD, visibility between 0 and 50 meters is classified as very dense fog, 51 to 200 meters as dense, 201 to 500 meters as moderate, and 501 to 1,000 meters as shallow fog.
