New Delhi: A large swathe of North India will continue to reel under the intense cold wave conditions coupled with dense fog and low visibility in the isolated pockets in the days to come.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), cold wave and extreme weather conditions will prevail across northern India in the days to come. The weather office has predicted that the minimum temperature will further decline to 3 degrees in the next two-three days in the national capital region.
The meteorological department has now extended its weather alert till January 22 and said that the cold weather conditions in the states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar and Delhi will continue as the temperature will hover below the normal limits.
Dense to very dense fog is likely to prevail in states such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, parts of northeastern states, parts of Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttrakhand, Bihar and sub-Himalayan regions, it added.
At 5:30 AM on Wednesday, Palam and Safdarjung recorded 9.4℃ and 9.8℃ temperatures respectively, as per India Meteorological Department (IMD). Visibility Meteograms for Palam (Delhi), Amritsar (Punjab), Lucknow (UP), Varanasi (UP) and Patna Airport (Bihar) show that the lowest visibility reported over Palam and Varanasi Airport has been 200 & 400 m in the early morning hours of today, according to the IMD.
"Visibility over Palam has improved since then and is 600 m at 7:00 AM. It is zero over Amritsar for past 6 hours and over Patna and Lucknow for the past 2 hours, the IMD said.
Meanwhile, at least 13 trains were reported to be running late on January 20 due to low visibility caused by fog, the Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO), Northern Railway (NR), was quoted as saying by the news agency ANI.
13 trains running late on 20th January, due to low visibility caused by fog: Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO), Northern Railway (NR)
— ANI (@ANI) January 20, 2021
Delhi's air quality had turned ‘severe’ on Tuesday due to low wind speed and high moisture levels, according to the IMD. The city's 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) was 404 on Tuesday. It was 372 on Monday and 347 the previous day.
Before that, Delhi's air quality remained in the ‘severe’ zone for three consecutive days. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered "good", 51 and 100 "satisfactory", 101 and 200 "moderate", 201 and 300 "poor", 301 and 400 "very poor", and 401 and 500 "severe".
The meteorological conditions like low wind speed and high moisture content in the air were unfavourable for dispersion of pollutants, an IMD official said. The average wind speed was 8 kmph to 10 kmph on Tuesday. Humidity levels shot up 100 per cent during the day.
Delhi has recorded six ‘severe’ air quality days this month so far, while four ‘severe’ air days were registered in December.
