Smog, fog conditions to continue in the mornings in Delhi till Nov 16: IMD

Visibility in the national capital reduced drastically on Wednesday morning as Delhi witnessed a fall in minimum temperature. According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), Palam airport reported very dense fog with zero visibility from 8-9 am, which eventually improved to 200 mt at 10 am. Safdarjung airport recorded low visibility of 200 mt at 7 am, which improved to 400 mt at 9:30 am.

As many as 10 flights were diverted and many were delayed in Delhi airport due to low visibility conditions. Nine flights were diverted to Jaipur and one to Lucknow on Wednesday. The situation eventually improved later. Low visibility procedures were initiated at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital handles around 1,400 flight movements daily.

The weather department has predicted mainly clear skies but with smog and dense to very dense fog in the morning till November 16. Smog and mist is expected in the evening time too, as per the IMD.

The IMD terms fog that reduces visibility to 50-200 metres (164-657 ft) as "dense" and less than 50 metres as "very dense".

The fog and poor visibility were attributed to high humidity, which causes droplet formation, along with lower wind speed and temperatures, an IMD official stated anonymously. The minimum temperature dropped to 17 degrees Celsius on Wednesday from 17.9 degrees the previous day.

The AQI in Delhi was 355, which is in the ‘very poor’ category – below its 'severe' pollution threshold of 400, according to SAFAR-India.