Thick fog engulfs Delhi-NCR as mercury dips again, airport warns of flight delays
The cold spell intensified on Monday, when Delhi recorded its coldest February day in four years. Dense fog blanketed several parts of the city during the early hours, sharply reducing visibility and deepening the chill.
Delhi-NCR remained shrouded in dense fog on Tuesday morning as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a yellow alert for poor visibility, warning of continued disruption over the next few days.
The thick fog, coupled with a fresh dip in temperatures, prompted Delhi airport to warn travellers about possible flight delays.
Visibility dropped to 100 metres at both the Palam and Safdarjung airports.
According to the IMD, the minimum temperature was recorded at 9.4 degrees Celsius, a notch above the normal for this time of the year, while partly cloudy conditions are expected through the day.
The cold spell intensified on Monday, when Delhi recorded its coldest February day in four years. Dense fog blanketed several parts of the city during the early hours, sharply reducing visibility and deepening the chill.
Data from the Safdarjung observatory, Delhi’s base weather station, showed a maximum temperature of 17.5 degrees, nearly 5 degrees below normal. This was the lowest February maximum since February 3, 2022, when the mercury had dipped to 14.4 degrees.
Despite sunshine breaking through later in the day, partly cloudy conditions prevailed across the city, offering little respite from the cold.
Air quality, meanwhile, remained a concern. Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) stood at 254 as of 7 am, placing it in the ‘poor’ category, according to official data.
The Air Quality Early Warning System has forecast that pollution levels are likely to remain ‘poor’ till Wednesday, before improving to ‘moderate’ levels from Thursday.
On Monday, the city’s average AQI was recorded at 188, with 21 monitoring stations reporting ‘moderate’ air quality and 16 stations in the ‘poor’ category, data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed.
Under CPCB norms, an AQI between 0–50 is ‘good’, 51–100 ‘satisfactory’, 101–200 ‘moderate’, 201–300 ‘poor’, 301–400 ‘very poor’, and 401–500 ‘severe’.