Bad weather played spoilsport at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here on Thursday. While many flights were delayed by one to three hours, three flights had to be diverted due to the inclement weather.
Flights diverted
The bad weather due to rain and the presence of rain-bearing cumulonimbus (CB) clouds resulted in flight schedules being disrupted from Thursday afternoon and through the evening. Many arrivals and departures were delayed by more than an hour, including some that were delayed by up to four hours. Three arrivals were diverted to Jaipur and Lucknow airports.
Dr. R.K. Jenamani, director incharge of the IGIA MeT unit said that both the Safdarjung and Palam observatories had been receiving rains since the last few days with thunderstorms and 17.7 and 27.2 mm rainfall recorded on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“At IGIA Palam, on July 12, there were two occasions of cloud development leading to CB-type clouds extending up to 12 km, accompanied by thunderstorm,” Dr. Jenamani said.
Visibility dips
“It was bad weather during the afternoon as very tall CB clouds developed. This resulted in 11 mm rain, reducing visibility to 1100 metres, with not much wind on the runway,” he said.
Dr. Jenamani said that the clouds have been generating stronger turbulence at lower altitudes, which may be causing the flight disruptions, apart from thunderstorms.
“It is not necessarily always the thunderstorm that causes disruption. However, it causes frequent wind direction changes and gusty cross winds that lead to flight diversion or delays,” he said.
Passengers, meanwhile, had a tough time at the airport. The situation, however, was not as bad as on Tuesday. “Flights are getting delayed every hour without proper announcement on when they will actually depart. All we hear are delay announcements for multiple flights,” said a passenger.
Many flights were delayed by more than an hour, including some that were delayed by
up to four hours
