Double whammy for north India as cold, fog intensify
Several flights delayed due to poor visibility; impact felt in central India with a 3 degree Celsius drop in temperature
NEWDELHI:Intense cold and dense fog disrupted normal life in north India on Monday, delaying several flights and trains as visibility was reduced to less than 25 meters in several areas. The weather department has predicted similar conditions for the next two days.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has attributed the fog and severe cold to cloud cover which has led to creation of a poor ventilation zone from Amritsar in the west to Gaya in the east, covering entire Delhi and parts of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
A cold wave was declared in parts of Odisha and West Bengal as a result of a cold plume that brought cold winds from northwesterly direction to eastern India. Sonepur in Odisha recorded minimum temperature of 5.4 degree Celsius, the lowest ever for the small town, even as Malkangiri, on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, recorded the maximum temperature of 30 degree Celsius.
Officials said the impact of the cold in north India was felt in parts of central India with minimum temperatures dipping by three to four degree Celsius in several places, including Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Nagpur in Maharashra.
The IMD said the ventilation condition is likely to improve by Monday evening but the fog will return due to a dip in temperature at night and low wind speed, which will contribute in a spike in air pollution levels in the region.
The Central Pollution Control Board’s Air Quality Index (AQI) showed that most towns in the poor ventilation zone had severe levels of air pollution. Delhi’s AQI was 446, Noida’s 464, Kanpur’s 424 and Gaya 335.
Several flights were cancelled and delayed in the region due to bad weather and poor visibility.
The Northern Railways in a statement said about 30 trains were delayed with more than a seven hour delay in Bhubaneshwar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and five hour for Puri-New Delhi Purushottam Express. Many trains coming from the northern region were delayed and some were even cancelled due to fog.
The cold wave conditions intensified in UP. Churk in Mirzapur district was the coldest which recorded 1.7 degree Celsius on Monday, lowest in last 50 years.
According to a Met official, Muzaffarnagar at 3.3, Fatehpur at 3.6, Banda and Orai at 4 degrees Celsius were other coldest districts in the state. Lucknow was relatively better with a minimum temperature of 6.7 degree Celsius in the early hours of Monday.
“Beginning December 31, there will be three to four days of winter rain. A fresh western disturbance is very likely to affect western Himalayan region from December 30 night onwards,” said a press release issued by the Lucknow Meteorological Centre.
At 1 degree Celsius, Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur recorded its lowest temperature of the last 55 years. Sikar was the coldest place in the state, recording a temperature of minus 0.5 degrees Celsius, which was 5.1 degrees below the normal.
Met office (western region) director Shiv Ganesh said the Western disturbance had created a cyclonic circulation over northeast and south-east Rajasthan, which had led to cold wave conditions. “The cold wave will continue for 48 hours,” he said.
For the hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the IMD on Monday predicted fresh snow and rain on January 2 and 3.
Bikram Singh, director of Meteorological Centre in Dehradun said, “On January 2 and 3, snowfall and rainfall activity will occur across the north-western Himachal belt.”