The Indian Meteorological Department said that the minimum temperature remained below five degrees Celsius as Delhi experienced cold weather on Saturday morning. The Safdarjung Observatory, which provides
representative data for the city, recorded a minimum of 4.4 degrees Celsius,
three notches below normal.

Kuldip Srivastava, head of
the IMD’s regional forecasting centre said, “Shallow” fog has diminished the visibility
to 1000 meters at Safdarjung and 800 meters in the Palam area”. “Very dense” fog
is when visibility is between 0 and 50 meters, 51 and 200 is “dense”, 201 and 500 “moderate”, and 501 and 1,000 “shallow”, as per
the weather department.

Also read: Delhi wakes up to foggy morning as minimum temperature remains below 5 deg Celsius

The mercury is expected to
increase slightly on Sunday and Monday due to fresh Western Disturbance, which
is going to affect the upper reaches of the Himalayas. This span of time will
experience moderate fog but soon this cold weather condition will prevail again
from December 29 onwards, added Srivastava.

For the plains, the IMD
declared a cold wave when the minimum temperature is 10 degrees Celsius or
below and is 4.5 notches less than normal.

In fact, the temperature
will also affect the air quality of the city which eventually had improved a little
but will again decrease due to the temperature, humidity and low wind speed,
said Srivastava.