|
| Motorists on a fog-covered Rajpath in Bhubaneswar on Friday morning. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee |
Bhubaneswar, Jan. 4: Janmejaya Lenka of Saheed Nagar found it hard to drive his motorcycle this morning because of the blinding fog.
“It takes me around 30 minutes to reach Cuttcak, but this morning, I was unable to see properly because of the fog. I was forced to drive slowly and it took me nearly an hour to reach there,” said Lenka, who works for a private organisation in Cuttack.
Lenka wasn’t alone. Many in the city found it difficult to drive in the dense fog that brought along with it low visibility this morning.
On the one hand, residents are relieved because the cold wave conditions have passed, but on the other, the dense fog has brought with it a set of different woes.
Sources in the Meteorological Centre said that while the visibility of the city was 500 metres this morning, it was likely to reduce to 200 metres on Saturday morning.
Dense fog conditions prevailed in various other places, including Chandbali, Cuttack, Gopalpur, Angul, Jharsuguda, Balangir and Phulbani. Weathermen have forecast dense fog in all these areas across the state for the next 24 hours.
Director of the Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar, S.C. Sahu said the fog was likely to remain till January 10. “Temperatures are also likely to fall from January 11,” said Sahu.
The absence of sunlight till afternoon added to the woes of city residents. While the minimum temperature in the city was recorded at 21.2 degrees Celsius, the maximum temperature today was 31.7 degrees Celsius.
Met officials said the fog was caused by inward-travelling moisture from the Bay of Bengal.
“Foggy conditions result in an increase in the minimum temperature and decrease in the maximum temperature,” said a Met official.
Residents were spotted gearing up to beat the weather by wearing woollens, even though the minimum temperature was on the higher side.
“It was almost dark in the early hours of the morning. We were expecting the sun to come out after 10am, but were disappointed to see hardly any sunshine,” said Madhushrre Naik, a college student.
However, some places in the city today received a spell of rain. While Chandbali received rainfall of 1.4mm, Paradip had 2.4mm of rain. The weatherman, however, has not forecast any rain for the next 24 hours.
| 
