Holiday travel disrupted as fog blankets NE; IMD warning till Jan 1

Guwahati: Dense to very dense fog has disrupted normal life in the northeast ahead of the New Year, with visibility reduced, affecting road transport in several parts of Assam, Manipur, and Tripura. The IMD has issued a warning of foggy conditions in several NE states until Jan 1.In a statement on Saturday, the IMD stated that dense fog conditions during night and morning hours are very likely at isolated pockets over Arunachal Pradesh until Dec 29, and in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura until Jan 1.For the next 24 hours, the regional meteorological centre of the IMD has issued a forecast of very dense fog as very likely to occur at isolated pockets over Assam and Meghalaya. Dense fog is very likely to occur in isolated pockets over Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura during this period. For Guwahati and its neighbourhood, the Met office has predicted fog or mist in the morning and a mainly clear sky later.Debashish Doloi, a cab driver who operates from Guwahati Airport, said the fog has affected business in the last three days, with many long trips being cancelled by drivers from Guwahati. “In the last three days, I cancelled trips to Shillong and Kaziranga due to fog only. Several accidents are being reported on national highways in the last couple of days mainly due to fog.”According to the IMD, during the last 24 hours (ending at 8:30 am on Saturday), dense to very dense fog (visibility <50 m) prevailed in isolated pockets of Assam, while dense fog (visibility 50-199 m) was reported in isolated pockets of Manipur and Tripura.Due to fog in the northeast, visibility reduced to as low as 20 metres in Assam’s Tezpur. The visibility also reduced significantly in Dhubri, where visibility reduced to 150 metres. In Agartala, visibility was reported to be just 50 metres, while the corresponding figure for Imphal was 100 metres in the last 24 hours.The regional meteorological centre of the IMD on Saturday issued a forecast of light rain very likely to occur at isolated places over Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday. Light snowfall is also very likely to occur in the higher reaches of Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday, it said. “Dry weather is likely to prevail over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura. No large change in minimum temperature is very likely over the region. Shallow to moderate fog is very likely to occur at isolated pockets over Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, and Tripura,” the Met office added.