Delhi Weather Live Updates: Zero visibility as dense fog blankets Delhi-NCR; flight services hit

Several vehicles collided on the Delhi-Lucknow highway near the Bahadurgarh station area in the early hours of Friday due to thick fog that reduced visibility to almost zero.Hapur police reported that the dense fog created hazardous driving conditions, leading to multiple accidents.

Cold to severe cold conditions were observed in isolated pockets of Punjab and Haryana on Thursday. Dense fog with visibility of less than 50 metres was reported in some parts of Punjab. In isolated pockets of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, dense fog with visibility up to 200 metres was observed. Zero visibility was reported in Amritsar and Pathankot, 10 metres in Patiala, 20 in Ludhiana, and 40 metres in Ambala and Karnal. Visibility was 50 metres in Bilaspur and 100 metres in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.

A thick blanket of fog covered Delhi-NCR on Friday morning, reducing visibility to zero. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi recorded a temperature of 9.6 degrees Celsius at 5:30 am. The Met Department has forecasted a minimum temperature of 6 degrees Celsius and a maximum of around 20 degrees Celsius for the day, with conditions of "very dense fog."

A ban on construction and demolition and restriction on the movement of BS III petrol and BS IV diesel four-wheelers in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and GB came into force with immediate effect on Thursday after the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM)invoked stringent measures under Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). The capital's AQI rose to 393 in the higher end of the ‘very poor' category on Thursday, as opposed to as opposed to 297 in the poor range a day earlier. In Noida, air quality dipped to ‘poor' at 259 from 161 in the ‘moderate' category the day before. Greater Noida also witnessed a similar dip to ‘poor' from ‘moderate' with an AQI of 270, against 177 on Wednesday. Neighbouring Ghaziabad saw the most drastic deterioration in air quality of the three, with AQI slipping to the ‘very poor' category at 332 from 198 the day before.

The concentration of pollutant PM10 exceeded the maximum level considered safe in all 22 cities of Haryana where researchers carried out a study last year. Gurgaon and Faridabad were the most polluted, and Narnaul and Ambala the least in the group of 22, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). In Gurgaon, the study recorded average PM10 levels over 2024 at 186 µg/m³, more than three times the limit of 60 µg/m³ set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Faridabad, the only city in the state that has been tagged as ‘non-attainment' under the National Clean Air Programme, wasn't far behind, with an average of 171 µg/m³ PM10 levels. On 280 days of the year – 76.5% -- PM10 concentration in Faridabad exceeded the daily NAAQS limit.

https://thetimesofindia.online/city/gurgaon/study-finds-22-haryana-cities-have-pm10-levels-above-national-standards-gurgaon-and-faridabad-top-list/articleshow/117096364.cms#:~:text=%22It%20is%20alarming%20that%20all,Manoj%20Kumar%2C%20analyst%20at%20CREA.