Air France flight to Paris, Kuwait Ariways flight to Kuwait City, Air India flight to Kabul, Kuwait Airways flight from Kuwaiti capital and Jet flight from Dubai were cancelled due to inclement weather conditions in Delhi.

Train service has also been disrupted due to fog. About sixty trains arrived several hours late in the city, including Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains. Over 22 trains were rescheduled because of poor visibility.

According to railway officials, several measures have been taken to make the train delays to the minimum. Officials also mentioned that the trains delay are due to speed restriction of the trains as an enhanced safety measures.

A senior Railway Ministry official said, “Our priority is the safety of passengers during the fog. We have taken safety related measures like speed restriction which lead to the delay.”

The most affected by the fog are Northern Railway, North Eastern Railway, North Central Railway and West Central Railway.

Hyderabad, May 18 — A deep depression has been intensified into tropical cyclone Laila over the southeast and nearby areas of the Bay of Bengal.

In a special bulletin Tuesday the Met Office said the storm Laila moved towards west-northwest around midday over the same area and it was centered about 1305 km southwest of Chittagong port, 1220 km south-southwest of Mongla port and 1230 km southwest of Cox’s Bazaar port.

A “severe weather warning” has been issued by the Met department and also a cyclone alert warning has been issued for Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

Cyclone Laila is coasting towards the mainland at the speed of 95 kmph to 100 kmph. Weather bureau official said that Laila is unlikely to hold up the monsoon.

For India the June-September monsoon is critical as two-thirds of the country depend on farm income.

From Bay of Bengal frequently deadly tropical storms take off during the summer months.

In the month of April, Nor’wester, a Bay of Bengal storm system, tore through Bengal and Bihar and it killed more than 100 people.

Cyclone Aila was the worst disaster for Bengal last year in decades which killed 128 and left thousands of survivors with nothing.

New Delhi, Jan. 22 — The prolonged spell of thick fog in Delhi this season was the worst since 2003. It has put off travel plans, took calls on sending kids to school, rescheduled appointments and also an effort to avoid night driving. It has again affected the life in Delhi.

In fact the blanket of fog is stretching from Bangladesh to Pakistan and it has covered large parts of the northwest plains. Since Tuesday night the thick fog has held New Delhi in its grip.

The fog has also disrupted the air, rail and road traffic in the worst way and also has made the Delhiites to change their plans according to the prediction of fog by the Met department for the next day.

Delhiites who are having the bad time with this blanket of fog are school children and their parents.

The Met office predicts that heavy fog is likely to be there during the R-Day celebrations, which will mark the sixty years of Indian Republic.

On Thursday the thick fog was almost 15 hours and the worst of this season. The airport was covered in longest dense fog of the season and the visibility was as low as 100-175 m in mornings these days. About 25 flights were cancelled and almost 200 being delayed.

NEW DELHI, India: Major part of North India is covered with dense fog from late Friday night and has hit the road, train and air traffic.

At the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi flight operations came to a standstill Saturday morning. At least 15 flights have been delayed due to less than 123 meters runway visibility. Two Jet Airways flights to Mumbai from here have been cancelled.

Fault in the PVR instrument landing system at IGI airport has also been reported, which led to diversion of many flights to other cities.

The dense fog is playing havoc with Northern Power Grid in Punjab and Haryana and this has caused delay in train traffic. The Delhi, Ambala and Palwal train services have been affected due to the glitch.

The dense fog in North India has also led to a cold wave in the plains area of Northern region. So far the cold wave has killed 39 people in Uttar Pradesh alone.
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Foggy And Icy Weather Embraced New Year In Capital
Almost two dozens flight delayed due to heavy fog in Delhi
Mercury dips 6.4°C in Capital, season’s lowest
Unusual temp of Nov; Srinagar -23.5 degrees Celsius, Delhi 8.6
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On Friday night the minimum temperature in Lucknow was 6 degrees Celsius and in Srinagar it was recorded -2 degrees Celsius. In Shimla the mercury slipped to 4 degrees Celsius.

The Met Department has warned that for the next 24 hours cold wave conditions will prevail in North India.

DELHI, India: The New Year started with a foggy and icy weather for Delhiites. Though the mercury rose marginally to 6.6 degree Celsius, but the city continued to reel under biting cold.

In the morning Delhi was covered with thick fog adding to the woes of morning commuters. The normal visibility range was too down. All the vehicles in the capital were seen plying with fog lights.

The winter chill was due to the windy conditions even though the minimum temperature climbed by 0.6 degree from yesterday’s six degree Celsius. Day before yesterday the minimum temperature was recorded at 5.2 degree Celsius, which was the lowest of the season so far.

According to the Met office, the chilly condition of the capital is the result of northwesterly winds blowing over north India and also due to the snowfall in higher reaches of Himachal and Kashmir valley.

The prediction by the Met department for Saturday is mist in the morning with maximum and minimum temperature likely to hover around 21 and 7 degrees Celsius respectively.
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Almost two dozens flight delayed due to heavy fog in Delhi
delayed
Mercury dips 6.4°C in Capital, season’s lowest
Unusual temp of Nov; Srinagar -23.5 degrees Celsius, Delhi 8.6
————————————————————-
Last year on January first the minimum temperature was 8.5 degree Celsius and on January 1, 2007 it was 2.6 degree.

Minimum temperature for all-time record was on December 26, 1945. The temperature dropped down to 1.1 degree Celsius.

DELHI, India: Due to heavy fog in the capital on Wednesday, over 20 flights to and from the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) were delayed.

An official of IGIA airport said to the media, “Twenty two in-bound and out-bound domestic flights at Delhi airport were delayed due to the reduced visibility owing to the fog.”

The temperature dipped as low as 5.2 degrees and the visibility was only 300 metres on the runway.

The Met says that maximum temperature in the city is expected to be 21 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

The Tuesday morning the temperature dipped to a minimum of 6.2 degrees Celsius.

The season’s lowest temperature was on last Saturday when the temperature dipped to 5.2 degrees Celsius.
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Mercury dips 6.4°C in Capital, season’s lowest
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Icy winds blew over entire north India. The Met office said the cold condition in Delhi is due to the snowfall in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

The coldest place recorded in north India was Mount Abu in Rajasthan with a minimum temperature of 2 degree Celsius in the morning. People at Ganganagar shivered at 4.9 degrees.

DELHI, India: Delhi was swept by icy winds Tuesday early in the morning. The city experienced the lowest temperature of the season Tuesday morning with mercury plummeting to 6.4 degree Celsius. The chilly morning was due to the snowfall in the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir valley.

On Sunday the temperature was 8.4 degree Celsius and yesterday it was 7.4 degree Celsius, the minimum.

Met official said, “The snowfall in higher in upper reaches of Himachal and Kashmir has brought down the temperature.”

In the morning a thin layer of fog engulfed Delhi skyline and it reduced the visibility to 1,000 metres.

The movement of flights were not affected due to the fog.

Met department has predicted mist in the morning. According to them, the maximum and minimum will be oscillating around 21 degrees and 6 degrees Celsius respectively on Wednesday.

Last year the lowest minimum of December was 6.4 degree Celsius. It was on December 26 and in 2007 it was 3.9 degrees on December 29.

In 1945 December 26 temperature was all-time record low. The mercury dipped to 1.1 degree Celsius.

The UK Meteorological (Met) Office says that the past ten years have been warmest in the recorded history.

The figures of the weather that is released at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen shows despite 1998 being the warmest year on record. The 90s has been the warmest in the decade. The recorded history is of 160 years.

Meanwhile, separately announcement by the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva on Wednesday saying that 2009 will be one of the ten warmest individual years recorded till date. The provisional figure of the global warming during 2009 is 0.44C, which is above the long-term average of 14C.

According to the head of climate change Vicky Pope, the figures “highlight that the world continues to see global temperatures rise, most of which is due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and clearly shows that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed.”

The German research group Germanwatch released a third paper released on Wednesday saying that Bangladesh, Burma and Honduras were the most affected countries in the past twenty years by extremes of climate.

The group mentions India in the top ten affected list. The list is Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and China.

NEW DELHI/ KASHMIR, India: The weather change in Srinagar marked -23.5 degrees Celsius in Leh says the weather officer.

The minimum temperature here dropped to -23.5 degrees whereas the maximum was 9.5 degrees Celsius on Sunday.

Even though, the winter temperature will fall during January, it is weird for the temperature to go down so slow in Leh in Novemebr. ‘Usually such low temperatures would be witnessed here in the months of January-February, but for the temperature to drop to minus 23.5 degrees in November is something I have not seen in my lifetime,’ said Nisar Ali, 45, a driver belonging to Leh.

Delhi pointed 8.6 degrees the lowest temperature on Novembers’ in three years. The maximum goes upto 25.4 degress celsius, mostly as a result of clear daytime skies.

Snowstorm in Kashmir and Himachal because of a passing western disturbance led cold winds to blow over Delhi.

MUMBAI, India: The depression formed over the Arabian Sea has strengthened into a Cyclone Phyan, with heavy rains and storms forecast for west coast part of India including the financial capital Mumbai.

Pic courtesy NDTV

Cyclone Phyan lay about 600km south-southwest off Mumbai was likely intensified further and move northeastwards, crossing south Gujarat and north Maharashtra coast between Mahuva and Dahanu. Landfall is expected between Alibaug and Valsad. It is after 67 years that Mumbai is facing cyclone. It is also expected to cause widespread rainfall across Goa, Gujarat and MP.

Extreme powerful rains are expected during the day, with wind speeds of about 800 km an hour. Fishermen are advised not to venture into the sea, and people living in low-lying areas have been asked to move.

The state government has asked all schools to shut for the day. Government offices have also been asked to shut by 2 pm. The ports have been told to decrease their activities for the day. Rain and windy conditions were causing delays of flights in and out in Mumbai’s airport.