NEW DELHI: A biting chill gripped the capital on the last day of the year with a thick layer of fog engulfing and air quality being in the “very poor” category on Wednesday.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the maximum temperature settled at 14.2o Celsius, 6.2o Celsius below normal and the lowest day-time temperature recorded since 2020. A generally cloudy sky with light rain is predicted for January 1, with cold day conditions likely to continue.
Station-wise data showed that Palam logged 13.6o Celsius, Lodhi Road 13.4o Celsius, the Ridge 13.8o Celsius and Ayanagar 13.1o Celsius. The minimum temperature was recorded at 6.4o Celsius, 0.4o Celsius below normal, the IMD said.
Visibility dropped sharply due to dense fog. Safdarjung reported the lowest visibility of 50 metres between 6.30 am and 7.30 am, which improved to 100 metres by 8 am. Palam recorded visibility as low as 50 metres between 4 am and 7.30 am, improving to 150 metres by 8 am. At least 150 flights were cancelled and two Delhi-bound flights were diverted to Jaipur. “A total of 79 arrivals and 71 departures were cancelled due to poor visibility caused by fog,” said Delhi airport. Air India had the maximum number of cancellations. An airline source said, “We had to cancel 34 outgoing and 34 incoming flights on Wednesday. There were no international cancellations.”
The air quality readings remained in the ‘very poor’ range. The 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) stood at 373. A station-wise analysis showed that 23 monitoring stations recorded ‘very poor’ AQI, while 14 were in the ‘severe’ category. ITO recorded the worst AQI at 433 during the evening hours, according to CPCB.