New Delhi: The national capital`s first spell of fog this season affected vehicular traffic and caused delays and diversion of about 140 flights at IGI airport, throwing normal life out of gear on Monday.
Fog started to descend upon the city around midnight and it engulfed the entire city by this morning, reducing the general visibility to almost zero.
Poor visibility affected air traffic, which led to delays, diversions, and cancellations of around 140 flights, causing inconvenience to the air travellers.
Road traffic was also bore the brunt of the poor visibility as traffic moved slowly in most part of the city till around 11 am, after which the fog dissipated away slowly.
MeT department said maximum temperature was 24.4 degrees Celsius, which was two degrees above normal, while minimum was 8.8 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year.
Humidity level was as high as 100 per cent while minimum was 72 per cent.
MeT department has predicted dense fog for tomorrow in morning and clear sky during the day. The minimum and maximum is expected to around 24 and 9 degrees Celsius respectively.
A senior Met department official said that Delhi and national capital region would witness fog or dense fog till forenoon during the week, and a partly cloudy sky on Saturday and Sunday.
"Generally dry weather has been prevailing over north west India including Delhi NCR during the first fortnight of this month. This weather has changed with the occurrence of dense or very dense fog over many parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and North Rajasthan," said O P Singh, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre, New Delhi.
He said the duration of dense fog was likely to increase further over plains of North West India during the coming days with very dense fog over isolated pockets in this area.
"A Western Disturbance was likely to affect Western Himalayan region and adjoining plains from Saturday onwards. This would result in light rain or snowfall at a few places over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and at one or two places over Uttarakhand between December 21 and 24," he said.
Light rain or thundershower are expected at one or two places over Punjab and northern Rajasthan on Sunday.
"Over Delhi NCR fog or dense fog would prevail till forenoon during the period, with partly cloudy sky mainly on December 21 and 22. The minimum temperature would be between 7 and 9 degree C and the maximum temperature is likely to remain between 20 and 23 degree C over Delhi NCR," Singh said.
