New Delhi, December 14
There is not likely to be any let-up in the fog situation in the Capital, at least during the next couple of days. The thick veil of fog that enveloped the Capital today reduced the runway visibility range to as low as 200m in the wee hours severely affecting air traffic, leaving hundreds of domestic passengers stranded at the Palam airport. Train services to the Capital were also affected.

According to IMD director S.C. Bhan, fog conditions are likely to persist for the next couple of days after which there could be an improvement.

Visibility forecast for the IGI airport suggests that visibility would fall below 500m around 1.30 am on December 15. Dense fog will further reduce the visibility to 200m around 3.30 am and the situation is not likely to improve till 6 am, Bhan adds.

Since the Met office has predicted a further fall in temperature in coming days, morning visibility is likely to remain low till the time it is snowing in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Cold wave conditions are likely to develop over some parts of plains of northwest India, including Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, west UP, besides Rajasthan and Gujarat during this period.

The current meteorological analysis and numerical weather prediction models suggest a fall in minimum temperatures by 3-4°C over plains of northwest India, Gujarat, Rajasthan and adjoining central India during next three to four days.

The airport authorities said that in the morning, runway visibility at the airport dropped below normal, affecting many flights. Services to northern sectors were the worst hit and around 20 flights were delayed by over three hours, causing a ripple effect all over.

Services of many airlines headed for Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Nagpur, Ahmedabad and Jammu were affected. Due to bad weather, arrivals of some international flights were also delayed. Some airlines were forced to reschedule their flights and at least seven international flights were diverted to the nearest airports.