Fog engulfs Delhi; road, air traffic disrupted

Heavy fog disrupted flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday.

New Delhi: Dense fog engulfed Delhi and its surrounding areas on Friday morning, disrupting road and air traffic as visibility was recorded to be very low.

Heavy fog disrupted flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport today.

With the runway visibility dropping below the required limits, an IndiGo flight was diverted while many departures were put on hold since 0415 hours, airport sources said.

All landings are taking place under CAT-III B landing system, the sources said, adding arrivals resumed about an hour ago.

CAT-III B allows the aircraft to land in visibility as low as 50 meters.

Minimum visibility required for CAT III landing at Delhi Airport is 50 meters and for low visibility take-off operations (LVTO) it is 125 meters.

GMR-run IGIA is the only airport in the country equipped with CAT IIIB.

As the national capital witnessed warm winter days for over a week, weather forecast agencies had on Thursday said Delhi would see a drop in temperature in the next two days following snowfall in upper reaches of north India's hills.

Meanwhile, an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Delhi may witness light rain on Saturday evening, which will bring down the temperature.

The minimum temperature of Thursday was recorded at 11.5 degrees Celsius, four notches above the season's average.

Wednesday's maximum temperature settled five notches above average at 24 degrees Celsius, while the minimum temperature at 11.6 degrees was also five notches above average.