NEW DELHI: Flights were cancelled, trains were late and road traffic over the weekend was slow as the national capital was engulfed in thick fog that blinded it for up to 12 hours from Friday night to Saturday. the morning. This occurred in a context of cold and polluted climate. The Met has issued a yellow alert, expecting moderate to dense fog on Sunday and light to very light rain on Monday.
According to IMD, very dense fog on Saturday caused zero visibility, which lasted for nine hours in Palam and six hours in Safdarjung, making it the worst fog situation of the season for the national capital. Meteorologists cited the absence of winds, an abundance of moisture near the surface layer, and a very stable surface boundary layer as reasons for this situation.
Foggy conditions also affected a large area of the Indo-Gangetic plains.
The formation of very dense fog that caused zero visibility for more than eight hours affected flight operations for the third consecutive day at the IGI airport. According to FlightRadar24, more than 400 flights were delayed and the average delay was 34 minutes. Airport officials said 19 flights, of which two were international, were diverted and some flights were cancelled. However, around 45 flights were canceled due to bad weather at the destination or other operational reasons from Delhi, airport officials added.
Dense fog in the Indo-Gangetic plain wreaked havoc on train services, leaving 1.5 to 2 lakh passengers stranded or delayed in their journeys to and from Delhi. The bad weather disrupted about 100 trains, with 49 requiring rescheduling due to maintenance needs. However, the delay caused major disruptions, particularly on key trains, including the Vande Bharat Express to Mata Vaishno Devi, Varanasi, Khajuraho, Ayodhya, and services like Lucknow Swarn Shatabdi and Amritsar Shatabdi, all of which suffered delays of more than four hours. .
On Saturday, the city’s base station Safdarjung recorded a minimum temperature of 7.8 degrees Celsius, 0.9 degrees above normal.