Delhi's winter woes continue as chill disrupts life, train & flight schedules go haywire

The national capital region's winter woes continued on Thursday, with Delhi and its adjoining areas remaining enveloped in a thick blanket of fog and the morning-hour temperature at 4.8 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season's average, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Observing the weather conditions, IMD has issued an "orange alert" for dense fog at isolated places in Delhi for Thursday. Twenty four trains to New Delhi have been running late due to low visibility.

The dense fog caused disruptions in both flight and train schedules, resulting in delays and diversions. Passengers remained stuck at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.


The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasts that dense fog will continue to affect the city on Friday, Republic Day, with the minimum temperature remaining at 7 degrees Celsius.

Low visibility caused by dense fog affected several areas of Delhi, including Brigadier Hoshiyar Singh Road, Anand Vihar, and India Gate, according to the weather department.


The IMD reported that Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh experienced dense to very dense fog in isolated pockets, while Rajasthan, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh had isolated places enveloped in dense fog.

At Safdarjung, Delhi's main weather station, visibility was recorded at 50 meters at 5:30 am, while Palam recorded just 25 meters, as stated by the Met Office. The IMD classifies fog as 'very dense' when visibility is between 0 and 50 meters, 'dense' between 51 and 200 meters, 'moderate' between 201 and 500 meters, and 'shallow' between 501 and 1,000 meters.

The IMD data showed the prevailing cold wave conditions in parts of North India. "Cold day to severe cold day conditions" were observed in many areas of Punjab, East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and isolated pockets of West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, northwest Rajasthan, Delhi, and southwest Madhya Pradesh.

The winter has been particularly harsh on the less privileged, with a recent report by the Centre for Holistic Development claiming that 180 homeless individuals had died due to the cold in the national capital.