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Weather Update: Dense fog engulfed large swathes of north India reeling under intense cold as visibility reduced significantly, disrupting rail and flight services and causing a vehicle pile-up in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. Amid low temperatures, high moisture and still winds, a layer of dense to very dense fog persisted over Punjab, Haryana, northwest Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and parts of Uttarakhand, according India Meteorological Department.
In a statement, the IMD said dense to very dense fog in many/most pockets is very likely over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh during night and morning hours in the next 24 hours due to moisture and light winds at lower tropospheric levels over the Indo-Gangetic plains.
The harshest winter period ‘Chilla-i-Kalan’ also set in Kashmir freezing fringes of many water bodies.
At least 11 people were injured in the pile-up involving several vehicles on the Lucknow-Gorakhpur National Highway, even as a moderate fog cloaked Delhi where 18 trains were running late by 1:30 to five hours.
Operations at the Delhi airport remained normal. However, three flights were returned or diverted to the Delhi airport due to bad weather in Chandigarh, Varanasi and Lucknow on Tuesday night.
According to IMD, very dense fog is when visibility is between 0 and 50 metres, 51 and 200 is dense, 201 and 500 moderate, and 501 and 1,000 shallow.
The Sadarjung Observatory, the primary weather station in Delhi, recorded a minimum temperature of 7.1 degrees Celsius, a notch below normal.
The maximum temperature settled at 21.2 degrees Celsius, the lowest so far this season. The minimum and maximum temperatures are likely to drop to 5 degrees Celsius and 20 degrees Celsius in the next few days.
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