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News: The Winter Fog Experiment (WiFEX) has completed ten successful years of dedicated research into North India’s dense winter fog and its impact on daily life and aviation safety.
About Winter Fog Experiment (WiFEX)
- It is one of the world’s few long-term open-field experiments focused solely on fog as an elusive winter hazard.
- Objective: The main scientific objective of this project is to study the characteristics and variability of fog events and associated dynamics, thermodynamics and fog microphysics, with the aim to achieve a better understanding of fog life cycle and ultimately improve capability in fog prediction.
- Launch: The Experiment was launched in the winter of 2015 at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), New Delhi.
- Executed by: It is led by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), with support from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).
- Airports covered: IGIA, New Delhi along with Jewar Airport, Noida, and Hisar, Haryana
- Techniques involved: Under the experiment, the scientists have deployed advanced instruments, micrometeorology towers, ceilometers, and high-frequency sensors to collect detailed data on temperature layers, humidity, wind, turbulence, soil heat, and aerosols.
- Outcomes: The experiment has resulted into development of a high-resolution (3 km) probabilistic fog prediction model for operational forecasting.
- This model can reliably predict when fog will begin, how dense it will be, how long it will last, and when it will clear — achieving more than 85% accuracy for very dense fog (visibility below 200 meters).
- Significance: For airlines, pilots, air traffic controllers, and passengers, this means fewer costly diversions, fewer delays, safer runways, and more informed travel during the challenging winter fog season.
- Next phase: WiFEX-II— which will extend localized, runway-specific fog predictions to more airports in North India.
