One of the strongest Western Disturbance (WD) of the season is approaching the Western Himalayan region. In view of this weather system Delhiites got some relief from dense fog today morning. The lowest visibility reported was 200 to 250 meters at Delhi airport early morning, but improved to around 400 meters at around 6 a.m. The runway visual range remained more than 1 km. Only seven flights were delayed and three cancelled from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
As widespread dense fog extended from Punjab up to Sub Himalayan West Bengal and the Assam Valley yesterday, flight delays in India severely affected air travellers. A chaotic situation prevailed at the Delhi airport as the main diversions for Delhi flights, Agra and Jaipur airports, also reported very low visibility. Flight operations came to a standstill at Sanganer airport in Jaipur, which unlike Delhi does not have CAT III compliant landing facility. A flight from Guwahati to Delhi was diverted but due to poor visibility conditions at Jaipur airport, suffered tyre burst and subsequent damage to a wing in the process of landing. Thankfully, no major mishap was reported though the schedule of several flights had been disrupted. Around 170 people on board landed safely but with a jaw-breaking jerk at the Jaipur airport.The Sanganer airport lacks the essential parameters for low visibility take-off and landing, which is a combination of ground infrastructure, avionics on board the aircraft and training of pilots.
Today morning, the airfields of Gwalior, Varanasi, Agra, Gaya and Agartala reported zero visibility. The weather in North India, including Punjab, Haryana and Delhi will become cloudy from tomorrow onwards while, Jammu & Kashmir will start receiving rain and snow. The weather system will bring widespread snowfall and rain in Himachal Pradesh and in the hills of Uttarakhand by the 8th of January. With the passage of the system, dense fog in North India will make a comeback.
