Clear skies in Delhi; low visibility affects rail, air traffic

Mainly clear skies prevailed in the national capital today even as dense foggy conditions were witnessed in the morning severely affecting the rail and air traffic.
According to a MeT Department official, the visibility was recorded at 100 mt at 5.30 AM and 8.30 AM respectively at Safdarjung. It improved to 500 meters at 11.30 AM and further to 1,000 meters at 2.30 PM.
Visibility was recorded at zero at 5.30 AM at Palam, the official said.
A senior railway official said train services were disrupted due to low visibility.
"As many as 81 trains are running late by several hours while three were cancelled and 12 rescheduled due to dense fog," the railway official said.

Flight operations at Delhi airport was also severely hit due to dense fog with as many as 38 flights failing to take off on their schedule time.

The number of departing flights delayed due to Delhi weather today stood at 38, DIAL said in a statement.
The average delay at the airport was about two hours, according to its website.
There was no cancellation or diversion on account of fog at the IGIA during the operations under Low Visibility Procedure (LVP), which was put in place at 23.34 hours yesterday night, it said.
However, 24 flights were cancelled and three diverted during LVP due to "other reasons," DIAL added.

The maximum temperature was recorded at 24.3 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year while the minimum temperature settled at 11.2 degrees, two notches above the normal.
The humidity oscillated between 100 and 55 per cent.
The Met department has predicted mainly clear skies for tomorrow with the maximum and minimum temperature expected to settle at 25 and 12 degrees Celsius.
"The skies will be mainly clear. Dense to very dense fog is likely to occur towards morning," the weather man said.
Yesterday, the maximum was 24.8 degrees Celsius, while the minimum settled at 9.4 degrees Celsius.