Fog covered the Indo-Gangetic plains, including Delhi, for the second morning in a row on Tuesday. In the national capital, visibility dropped to 25 metres, which slowed down traffic. At the Safdarjung Observatory this morning, the coldest it got in Delhi was 6.3 degrees Celsius.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a “yellow” alert for Delhi from December 20 to December 23. This means that people should “be aware” because moderate to dense fog is expected.
Delhi | Dense fog covers the national capital this morning. Visuals from Lodhi Road, Safdarjung, Airport flyover and AIIMS. pic.twitter.com/8NKVd5Esa1
— ANI (@ANI) December 20, 2022
The IMD calls fog “very dense” when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres, “dense” when visibility is between 51 and 200 metres, “moderate” when visibility is between 201 and 500 metres, and “shallow” when visibility is between 501 and 1,000 metres.
An IMD official told PTI that visibility had dropped to 25 metres at the Palam airport and 50 metres at the Safdarjung airport this morning. At 5:30 a.m., no one could see anything in Bhatinda, Punjab, but people could see 25 metres in Amritsar, Ganganagar, Patiala, and Lucknow.
Visibility data and RGB Composite (satellite) images show that a dense to very dense layer of fog is mostly over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, North Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. (Twitter/@Indiametdept)
Update issued at 0810Hours
Kind attention to all flyers!#Fog #FogAlert #DelhiAirport pic.twitter.com/ByWrNEIMed— Delhi Airport (@DelhiAirport) December 20, 2022
A tweet from the official Twitter account for Delhi Airport said that Low Visibility Procedures have been going on since midnight. “At the moment, all flight operations are normal,” it said.
The weather service has warned that there will be dense fog in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, north Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, and sub-Himalayan West Bengal for the next three days.
The department also put out a warning that it could be hard to drive on the highways, that accidents could happen, and that power lines could be tripped.
“There will probably be train delays, reroutes, and cancellations. Flight delays and cancellations are likely to make it hard to run the airport,” it said.
“People with asthma and bronchitis are likely to wheeze, cough, and feel short of breath, and long-term exposure could cause eye irritation or infection,” the IMD said.
In the Dankaur area of Uttar Pradesh, fog caused an accident early Tuesday morning, according to the news agency ANI. After a bus carrying 60 people crashed into a truck carrying containers, at least 10 people were hurt and one person died.
(With inputs from agencies)
