India weather update: Delhi-NCR wakes up to heavy fog after rains, IMD predicts more rainfall in February
The Newz Radar
New Delhi: Winters are not ready to leave Delhi any time soon. On Friday, the national capital woke up to shallow fog with a chilly winter morning. The fog affected visibility and caused disruptions to flight and train services.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), a blanket of heavy fog covered parts of Delhi and East Uttar Pradesh on February 2, while the dense fog was observed in isolated pockets of Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.
There was no respite from dropping temperatures after Thursday’s shower and the minimum temperature was recorded at 9 degrees Celsius on Friday early morning. The precipitation and thunderstorms in some parts of Delhi-NCR resulted in ongoing chilly weather in the region.
On Friday (Feb 2), some isolated parts of Haryana also observed dense fog, along with some regions of Rajasthan, East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
On the night of February 1, at 11:30 pm, the visibility was recorded at 500 metres in Delhi’s Safdarjung and East Uttar Pradesh.
The IMD classifies it as ‘shallow’ fog when visibility is between 500m and 1,000m, as ‘moderate’ when the visibility stays between 200m and 500m, as ‘dense’ when visibility is between 50m and 200m, and ‘very dense’ when the visibility drops below 50m.
Due to heavy fog conditions, several flights and trains were delayed by 10-12 hours and many were cancelled.
Moisture from western disturbances that brought rainfall to large parts of the plains over the last two days has led to ‘very dense’ foggy conditions, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, with similar weather expected till Saturday.
Another western disturbance is expected to influence the plains of northwest India from Saturday evening, with the possibility of drizzles in parts of Delhi, the IMD said.
“There is plenty of moisture in the atmosphere due to the western disturbance that has just passed Delhi NCR. With winds calming, this has allowed very dense fog to form again in the region,” an IMD official said on Friday.
The IMD further noted that the Western Himalayan Region and select areas of Uttar Pradesh are anticipated to witness rainfall at one or two locations in the coming days.
“The Western Himalayan Region (Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) also gets rainfall and snowfall activity, as shown in recent satellite imagery,” said IMD.
