Chilly day in Delhi as temperature dips to 5ºC, fog delays at least 20 flights, 60 trains

The minimum temperature for the day in Delhi plummeted to 5 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season’s average.

Dense fog shrouded the national capital on Thursday with visibility dropping to less than 50 metres. Over a dozen flights and trains were delayed even as the minimum temperature for the day plummeted to 5 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season’s average.

Gurgaon saw a misty Wednesday, affecting vehicular movement on roads due to low visibility. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

“This was the lowest minimum temperature recorded in January so far this season. Due to dense fog the visibility came down to 50m at Safdarjung at 8.30am while it was less than 50m at Palam,” an official at India Meteorological Department said.

Agency reports suggested that around 20 flights were delayed due to fog. According to Northern Railway officials, at 6.30am as many as 60 trains were reported running late while 14 were cancelled and 18 were rescheduled because of fog.

The weather office predicted a similar situation on Friday.

“The sky will remain clear in the day on Thursday. Dense fog will occur on Friday morning while shallow fog will prevail during the day,” the MeT office said.

Met office said that relative humidity at 8.30am was 100 per cent and maximum temperature on Thursday will hover around 19 degrees Celsius.

Good wind speed also helped improve the air quality. At 9am, the Air Quality Index (AQI) — a measure of pollutants for Delhi was recorded at 363, a dip from Wednesday’s 398 — both fall in ‘very poor’ category. On Tuesday the index value of the air quality was 408 which was in the ‘severe’ zone.

The AQI is calculated on a scale of 0-500. An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 severe.