Cold wave worsens Delhi weather; foggy air, rail traffic

MUMBAI|NEW DELHI: Dense fog across north India disrupted flight and train operations in the region, also impacting air and rail services elsewhere in the country. At Indira Gandhi International Airport in the Capital, India’s busiest by number of passengers, fog rendered visibility to the lowest level, enabling only pilots trained on CAT III instrument landing systems to land their aircraft.

Delhi Monday recorded the coldest December day in 119 years.

A spokesperson at Delhi airport said close to 20 planes were diverted and four flights cancelled. Delhi handles 600 flights daily.


According to real-time plane tracker Flightradar24, departures at Delhi airport were delayed by an average of 86 minutes as of 3:47 pm on Monday, with 351 flights delayed and 48 cancelled. The average delay for arrivals was 30 minutes, with 138 flights landing late and 21 cancelled, it showed.

Other north Indian cities were impacted, too.

Severe Cold Wave
“Owing to the dense fog in north India, our flights have been impacted across all of India,” said IndiGo, which operates a total of 167 departures from Delhi. Vistara, too, had flights impacted.

Close to 50 trains operated by Northern Railway were delayed.

The weather office predicted severe cold wave conditions, accompanied by dense fog, in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, north Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, apart from New Delhi, over the next two days, with some respite thereafter.

“Major parts of central and adjoining northwest India are likely to have widespread rainfall and hailstorm at isolated parts during the first two days of the New Year. This is because of the fresh western disturbance, which is likely to affect western Himalayan region. When westerly winds interact with the easterlies, rains and thunderstorms happen,” the Met department said in a statement.