Fog appears in May as mercury dips to 15.8 degree Celsius in Delhi, lowest in 41 years

NEW DELHI: The freakishly wet weather seen in the past few days turned more bizarre on Thursday morning when a dense fog enveloped several parts of the city, an extremely rare event for this time of the year, and the minimum temperature dipped to 15.8 degrees Celsius, the lowest recorded in the month in 41 years.
Visibility dipped to 100m at Safdarjung around 6am due to excessive moisture in the air after Wednesday's showers, low temperatures and calm winds, the met office said.
There was a chill in the air in the morning as the minimum temperature dipped below 16 degrees C at the city's base station, Safdarjung, nine notches below normal and the lowest recorded in the month since May 2, 1982. According to IMD, this was the third coldest May morning in records going back to 1901.
Expect day temperature to rise gradually, says Met department
While the minimum temperature of 15.8 degrees Celsius recorded at Safdarjung on Thursday created a 41-year record, the lowest temperature ever recorded at the station during May was 15.1 degrees C reported on May 2, 1969.
The maximum temperature on Thursday was recorded at 32.1 degrees Celsius, seven notches below normal, against 30.6 degrees Celsius a day earlier.
"There was high moisture in the city's air due to rain a day earlier, the wind speed was also very low and there was passage of the western disturbance away from the region which led to a dip in the temperature. All these factors led to the drop in visibility," said Kuldeep Srivastava, weather scientist, IMD.
The fog was considerably lighter at Palam, where a visibility of 800 metres was recorded in the morning.
In the 24 hours till 8.30am Thursday, Safdarjung logged 29.7mm of rain, making it the wettest day in May in two years. On May 20, 2021, the station had reported 119.3mm, the highest single-day rainfall ever recorded during the month.
Meanwhile, the weather department expects daytime temperatures to rise gradually. The city may see yet more rain, albeit very light showers or drizzle from May 6 evening to May 7.
"There are chances of light rain around evening or night of May 6, due to a fresh western disturbance impacting the region. However, it will not be significant. On May 7 however, the rain activity may slightly increase. There will be no major effect on temperatures, the maximum temperature may drop by a degree or so," said Srivastava.
Friday is likely to be sunny with a slight rise in temperatures.
The maximum and minimum temperature on Friday may hover around 34 and 19 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the air quality remained moderate. The air quality index (AQI), on a scale of 0 to 500, was 113 on Thursday against 107 a day earlier.