Season’s coldest day

It was one of the lowest maximum temperatures ever in January at 12.1 degrees Celsius on Friday — the coldest day of the season.

It was one of the lowest maximum temperatures ever in January at 12.1 degrees Celsius on Friday — the coldest day of the season.

HT Image

At a sharp nine degrees below the normal mark, the mercury chilled a city crawling under a veil of very dense fog since early morning.

The cold day conditions are the result of nagging clouds over the Capital’s skies keeping the sun hidden all the time, the Met said.

The fog was so dense that starting at 6.30 a.m., the visibility remained below 100 metres, mostly dropping below 50 metres till the peak morning hours at 9.30 a.m., the Safdarjung observatory of the India Meteorological Department said.

Seeing no indication of a change in the coming few days, the forecaster issued a “dense fog alert” for Saturday.

“It will be a very foggy day,” said the Duty Officer at the Met Office.

The airport, however, might see some respite, the late night, revised forecast of the Palam observatory said.

“The spell of dense fog at the airport will be shorter, for about five hours bending at 9 a.m.,” said R.K. Jenamani, director, Palam, IMD.

It has been a particularly bad week for Delhiites with severe cold-day conditions prevailing since Monday, when maximum temperatures fell seven degrees below normal and kept hitting a new low every second day.

“The nippy winds are too feeble to clear out the fog but chilly enough to add to the cold,” said Ashish Bhatnagar, an MNC executive in Connaught Place.

The minimum temperature remained above normal at 8.2 degrees Celsius. The temperatures on Saturday are expected to remain similar.