Dense fog early Monday morning, with visibility dropping to under a 1,000 feet, caused several flight diversions at Dubai International Airport, the Khaleej Times reported Tuesday.
According to the report by the Dubai-based paper, flights could not land for almost one and half-hour due to the poor visibility which lasted from 7a.m. to 8.26 a.m,
The poor visibility at Dubai International Airport forced the officials to divert all coming planes and delay the departing flights until the situations improved.
Malaysian Airlines' cargo aircraft was diverted to Sharjah International Airport, Emirates from London also to Sharjah, KLM to Muscat, Emirates' incoming flight from Sydney to Muscat, Kenya Airways to Muscat and British Airways to Bahrain.
But the situation improved after 8.26a.m. and flights were allowed to land. However, late arrivals resulted in late departures, with many passengers missing their onward connections, said the paper.
Mist and fog are a common occurrence in winter as they are caused by low lying clouds and collections of tiny water droplets which take longer to disperse or evaporate as it takes longer for ground to heat.
Fog remains for two or sometimes for three consecutive days, and nights of December 8/9 (in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi) as well as December 9/10 (in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah) saw a thick fog.
The Dubai Met Office was quoted by the daily as saying that there was a 30 to 40 percent chance of a recurrence of fog this morning. December generally has a mean of 1.2 days of fog - the most Dubai has ever had was nine foggy days in December, the maximum for any one month – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
