The national Capital has witnessed the worst fog spell in December, which lasted for the last eight days. According to the Meteorological Department, the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport has witnessed 101 hours of fog starting from December 15 evening till Monday morning. Only by 8.30 am on Monday, the fog spell lifted and moderate fog was recorded at the Airport in the last 24 days.
Smaller flights hardly operated during this eight days fog spell. “The operations at the Delhi Airport normalised on Monday morning by 8.30 am. The fog spell that had engulfed not just the airport since December 15 lasted for the longest period, with visibility less than 1,000 metre during this period. During this fog spell, the airport had been closed for around 15 hours, as the visibility dropped to 50 metre, hampering flight operations. Only the afternoon of December 16 and evening of December 17 were fog-free in this period,” said RK Jenamani, Director, IGI, MeT. low visibility procedures were initiated at the airport between 1 am and 4 am on December 24, but due to strong winds, fog layer was dissipated by 5 am. Operations at the airport were normalised with visibility over 2,000 metre.
Meanwhile, train operations continued to be affected due to fog with more than 60 trains running late by several hours. There are as many as 65 trains, including Rajdhani, Shatabdi and other mail and express service running behind schedule due to bad weather, according to Railway Ministry data. While Mahananda Express is running 17 hours late, Brahmaputra Mail is behind schedule for 15 hours. Toofan Express and Vikramshila Express were late by 13 hours and six hours respectively due to poor visibility. Besides Rajdhani for Bhubaneswar, Patna, Howrah, Sealdah, Shatabdi trains for lucknow and Kanpur are also running behind the schedule. Railways have already cancelled services of 53 trains for 10 days from December 22 keeping in view the foggy weather condition in northern region.