As many as 267 trains, including 82 express trains, 140 passenger trains and 40 sub-urban trains, were cancelled during the last 24 hours and over 100 flights delayed as a “very dense fog” engulfed swathes of north Indian plains on Monday.
The dense fog impacted visibility across the region even as the air quality worsened to the “severe” category in Delhi amid severe cold wave conditions. Satellite images showed a fog layer extending from Punjab and adjoining northwest Rajasthan to Bihar through Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Delhi witnessed intense cold wave for the sixth consecutive day while very dense fog reduced visibility to just 25 metres, hitting road, rail and air traffic movement.
The minimum temperatures in the national Capital rose marginally though. The Safdarjung observatory, Delhi’s primary weather station, recorded a minimum of 3.8 degrees Celsius as against 1.9 degrees on Sunday.
The cold wave spell in Delhi has been so intense that the national Capital has been recording minimum temperatures lower than that of most places in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand .
“A total of 267 train, including 82 express trains, 140 passenger trains and 40 sub-urban trains, were cancelled,” a railways official said. On Sunday, around 335 trains were delayed, 88 cancelled, 31 diverted and 33 short terminated due to foggy weather.
Five flights were diverted and 30 delayed due to the foggy conditions, officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport said. An Air India Express flight from Sharjah to Delhi has been diverted to Jaipur. A Delhi to Trivandrum Vistara flight has been delayed by an hour.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) the long spell of intense cold to a large gap between two western disturbances, which meant frosty winds from the snow-clad mountains blew in for a longer-than-usual period.
A senior IMD meteorologist said short-term relief is likely after the 24 hours under the influence of back-to-back western disturbances. When a Western disturbance — a weather system characterised by warm moist winds from the Middle East — approaches a region, the wind direction changes. Hence, the chilly northwesterly winds from the mountains will stop blowing for a few days leading to an increase in temperatures, he said.
The visibility levels dropped to 50 metres at the Palam observatory, near the IGI Airport, and 25 metres at the Safdarjung observatory and the Ridge weather station, an official of the IMD said. “The long cold wave spell in Delhi can be attributed to a large gap between two western disturbances which allowed the chilly northwesterly winds from the mountains to affect the plains for a longer-than-usual period,” Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather, said.
Usually, there is a gap of three to four days between two western disturbances. This time, the gap increased to seven days, Palawat said. A western disturbance retreated from the region by December 30 and the next one came on January 7. The visibility levels dropped to 50 metres at the Palam observatory, near the IGI Airport, and 25 metres at the Safdarjung observatory and the Ridge weather station, an official of the IMD said.
The weather stations at Lodhi Road, Ayanagar and Ridge recorded a minimum temperature of 3.6 degrees, 3.2 degrees and 3.3 degrees. The Safdarjung observatory had logged a minimum temperature of 1.9 degrees Celsius on Sunday, 2.2 degrees Celsius on Saturday, 4 degrees Celsius on Friday, 3 degrees Celsius on Thursday and 4.4 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.
Visibility levels dropped to zero metres at Bhatinda and Agra; 25 metres at Patiala, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bhiwani, Safdarjung, Ridge, Ganganagar, Varanasi, Fursatganj and Bhagalpur, and 50 metres at Hisar, Karnal, Palam, Meerut, Lucknow, Bahraich and Patna.
Monday was the sixth consecutive day that Delhi’s minimum temperature was lower than most hill stations in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, including Chamba (8.7 degrees), Dalhousie (9 degrees), Dharamshala (9.2 degrees), Shimla (10.3 degrees), Manali (6 degrees), Kangra (8.9 degrees), Dehradun (6.5 degrees), Mussoorie (11.3 degrees), Nainital (6 degrees), Mukteshwar (7.6 degrees) and Tehri (9.2 degrees), according to the IMD.
In Jammu & Kashmir, snowfall in higher reaches and light drizzle in plains extended the respite from cold wave conditions in Kashmir as minimum temperatures stayed around freezing point in most parts of the valley. There was light to moderate snowfall in hilly areas like Gulmarg, Sonamarg-Zojila axis and Machhil in Kupwara, the officials said. They said a light drizzle took place over night in many plain areas of the valley.