Met says winter not over, may get foggy again

The dense fog that took everyone by surprise on Wednesday had been cooking up for the past two days in the dense clouds hovering over Delhi.

A spell of around 3 mm of rain in the night injected the moisture in the air needed for fog. Added to that, the nippy northerly winds of the past few days, too, were calm. “The conditions were ideal for fog. The same conditions were present on Monday night as well, but due to heavy wind speed, the fog could not stay,” said an official at the Safdarjung Met office.

The Met department is not willing to concede that this dense fog in the first week of February was untimely for Delhi. “Officially it is winter, so fog is expected,” is how the weatherman put it.

Bad news is that fliers and morning commuters in Delhi have reasons to worry because the weatherman has said fog might return in the next 48 hours. “There are chances of light shower at night, so there are good chances of fog occurring again on Thursday. However, it may not be as bad as today,” said BP Yadav, spokesman for the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Forecasters at the IMD have predicted that visibility at the airport might drop to 300 meters after 5.30 am around the IGI airport area. Records at Safdarjung showed that during peak office hours starting 9.30 am, fog reduced visibility to just 100 meters and did not improve until 11.30 am.

Wind Chill conditions at work
Meanwhile, the chill is lingering. The Met department has said even though cold wave is officially over, the extra nip in the air is due to the stinging winds from the mountains caused by heavy snowfall there.

As for the next few days, the mercury is expected to fall, says the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting. In fact, it might drop to around 6 degrees Celsius over the weekend, it stated.