Dubai: Another day of thick fog, another day of flight delays.
Poor visibility due to dense fog caused flight disruptions for the fourth straight day in Dubai yesterday.
As of 4pm, some 188 flights were delayed, including arrivals and departures, and 12 were cancelled, according to flightradar24.com The day before, some 218 flights were delayed.
Although the fog cleared by 11am, delays could still happen due to the long queue of aircraft needing to depart and land when visibility improved. The delay time, however, was shorter now which was 15 minutes on average.
In Abu Dhabi, 14 flights were delayed but the average delay time was only five minutes.
Passengers are advised to check their flight status and updates through their airport’s flight bulletin.
Satellite image of the fog from the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) at 7.45am showed the Northern Emirates, from Sharjah to Dubai, and going inland covered in fog. Some patches of the country were also shrouded white such as Fujairah and the islands in Abu Dhabi.
The NCM on its official Twitter page also shared a time-lapse video by Khalid Al Hammadi that showed fog covering Al Reem island’s skyline where only the top half of its buildings are visible.
The national weather bureau said the fog usually dissipates by 11am. The fog warning is still up though as relative humidity is expected to increase from Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Winds will be light to moderate on Tuesday with northwesterly to northeasterly winds blowing at 15km/h to 25km/h, reaching 30km/h at times.
On Wednesday until Friday, evenings will be humid, still with chances of fog, especially over internal and western areas.
The amount of clouds will increase over the sea on Thursday and Friday.
