February 07, 2008	Thursday	Muharram 28, 1429

LAHORE, Feb 6: Fog again blanketed majority of cities in Punjab, including Lahore, on Wednesday morning, disrupting air, rail and road traffic for several hours.

Cold wind from the north too kept weather chilly throughout the day, especially in the morning and in the evening.

“The flight schedule remained disrupted from 4am to 10am. All flights are still late by several hours as the disruption earlier in the day disturbed the entire schedule for today,” airport authorities told Dawn in the evening.

Trains too were behind their schedule as they were driven at a slow speed on the fog- bound tracks.

The local Met office said a portion of the westerly system that generated rain and snowfall over Balochistan on Tuesday merged into the already westerly system persisting over the Northern Areas. It was likely to give rain particularly in Rawalpindi and Gujranwala divisions during the next 24 hours. In Lahore, it would remain partly cloudy to cloudy with chances of light rain.

Fog started developing in Lahore and elsewhere in the province at around 1am on Tuesday night. Visibility in the city remained just 100 metres from 4am to 7am and further reduced to just 10 metres at 8am, finally improving at noon.

Driving was difficult in the morning due to poor visibility even in downtown. Motorists had to switch on the headlights of their vehicles to find way, and to drive in queues to avoid accidents. Roads were damp and slippery, making motorbike riding more risky. Cold wind too added to the motorcyclists’ woes.

The city’s maximum temperature was 16.2 degrees Celsius and the minimum two degrees Celsius with 92 per cent humidity in the morning and 56 per cent in the evening.