Bhubaneswar: A very dense fog blanketed the city for the second successive day on Saturday, reducing visibility to 30 metres, causing inconvenience not only to residents but also partially affecting rail, road and air traffic.
Dense fog also reduced visibility to below 200 m in Cuttack, Angul, Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Nayagarh.
“I got late in meeting a lawyer in Cuttack due to the dense fog, which forced me to drive at a restricted speed on the national highway,” said Manoranjan Mohapatra, a Bhubaneswar businessman.
IMD said there would be no relief from such dense fog in at least 15 districts, mostly in coastal pockets, for the next three days from Sunday. The districts are Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Khurda, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Ganjam, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Sundargarh, Keonjhar and Angul.
Manorama Mohanty, scientist and head of the regional IMD centre here, said a constant increase in relative humidity levels, a calm wind and the inflow of moisture from the Bay of Bengal support the development of dense fog, mostly in coastal pockets.
She said there would be no sign of change in the prevailing fog conditions or in night temperatures during the next three days.
On Saturday, Phulbani recorded the lowest minimum temperature of 11.5 degrees Celsius. The city recorded a minimum of 17.6C.