Delhi witnessed the foggiest day of the season on Sunday. A thick layer of fog blinded visibility at Delhi International Airport that grounded over 50 domestic and international flights and causing inconvenience to scores of passengers.
Fog started to descend at the airport late last night but it become dense in the morning when the runway visibility at one of the runways dipped below 50 metres at one end, airport officials said. However, the runway visibility did not drop below 150 metres at the main runway (28/10) and flights were taking off and landing on it. Dense fog returned at the airport around 6 pm which, the weathermen claimed, remained till Monday morning. They have predicted similar weather conditions for the next couple of days.
The visibility kept fluctuating at the third runway which caused some delay in operations of flights from that runway, they said, adding flights were operating using various categories of instrument landing system. Around 50 domestic and international flights were delayed from one hour to three hours due to poor visibility.
“Some of the flights were rescheduled and got delayed due to poor weather conditions at the destinations,” airline officials said. During the night and early this morning, the visibility on the main runway 28 was above CAT I (550 metres) while on third runway 29, low visibility takeoff operations (lVTO) were on. But as the day progressed, visibility also dropped to below 50 metres on third runway, though for a brief period, affecting the flight operations, airport sources said.
Minimum visibility required for CAT III landing is 75 metres and for low visibility take-off operations (lVTO) is 125 metres. Besides Delhi, foggy conditions were reported in lucknow, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Vizag, Patna and Guwahati leading to disruption in flight movement.
However, dense fog gave way to a clear sky later in the day. The minimum temperature was recorded at 7.8°C, one notch above the normal, while maximum temperature was 19.3°C which was one notch below the normal. The MeT department has predicted mainly a clear sky with moderate or dense fog in the morning tomorrow with the maximum and minimum temperatures remaining at 18°C and 6°C respectively. The humidity level oscillated between 100 per cent and 75 per cent.