80 trains cancelled; fog envelopes Delhi on Christmas

It was a cold, foggy day in Delhi with day temperature plummeting to 15.4 degrees Celsius and a layer of shallow fog enveloping the city, affecting services of 80 trains.

Flight operations were normal, officials at Indira Gandhi International Airport said, adding that the "weather condition did not have any impact on flight operations as visibility was fine".

As per the official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), maximum temperature settled at 15.4 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature was recorded at 11.5 degrees Celsius, while the visibility was recorded 500 metres, considered as low for the period.

At 8:30 am, the visibility was recorded at 600 metres. It further dropped to 300 metres at 11.30 am before improving three hours later.

Normally the sun was not visible throughout the day, but the IMD official said that on Sunday the Sun appeared at 7.30 am and sunset time was recorded as 5.32 pm.

Maximum and minimum temperatures were recorded at 24.5 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius, respectively.

The weatherman has further said that the maximum humidity was recorded as 98 per cent, whereas minimum was 91 per cent.

The IMD has forecasted that on the maximum and minimum would hover around 21 degrees Celsius and 10 degrees Celsius, respectively.

"The sky will remain clear throughout the day. Mist or shallow fog is likely to occur in the morning on Monday," the IMD official said, adding that the visibility would be between 500 metres to 600 metres.

Meanwhile, railway officials said 80 Delhi-bound trains were running behind schedule by several hours, while 23 others required to be rescheduled owing to poor visibility. However, there was no fresh cancellation of services announced.

"The 34 services, which were announced as cancelled between the period December 17 and January 15, only remain cancelled. There is no fresh cancellation," a railway official said.