Jan foggiest month since the '60s

New Delhi: With the last spell of fog on January 27 and 28, this month is now officially the foggiest since the 1960s, having clocked a total of 172 hours of below 200 m visibility. The good news is that the Met department does not foresee too many dense fog spells in the remaining days of the month.
This winter season has been unique in the sense that December recorded only 4 hours of below 200 m visibility against record-breaking January, and those also on the last day of the month. Met officials say that the current month has been plagued by persistent calm systems with no strong winds, a substantial moisture supply and middle latitude systems that regularly brought in cold air the combination of which proved ideal for dense fog formation. "This month has seen only five days which had no dense fog. Between January 9 and 13, visibility did not fall so much while the worst phase has been from the 19th to the 22nd which saw 33 hours of below 200 m visibility,'' said R K Jenamani, director in-charge, IGI Met.
The city finally got a respite from fog on Thursday though part of the new runway experienced low visibility during the early morning hours. That did not have any impact on flight movement as the runway was not in use during that period. The maximum temperature went up to 26.6 degrees Celsius, five degrees above normal, while the minimum was 10.1 degrees Celsius, two degrees Celsius above normal.
On Thursday, Delhiites enjoyed a warm sunny afternoon though the early part of the day remained cloudy under the impact of a western disturbance that is currently over northern Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir.
29./01/10 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2010