All 42 flights were cancelled at the Bagdogra airport on Tuesday because of dense fog at Siliguri and its surrounding areas on Tuesday.

Residents of Siliguri experienced the season’s first chill as the mercury dipped to around 15 degrees Celsius during the daytime and the city remained under a dense fog cover throughout the day.

Hundreds of passengers got stranded at the Bagdogra airport and many could not reach the airport because of the fog.

“All flights scheduled to land at the Bagdogra airport today were cancelled because of bad weather and poor visibility. It was almost a zero visibility situation,” said Subramani P, the airport director.

Like the situation in south Bengal, the chill feel had been missing for the past few days in Siliguri and neighbouring areas.

The days were in fact warmer as the temperature hovered above 22 degrees and even the night temperatures didn’t fall according to January levels.

“However, from yesterday (Monday) evening, there has been a major change in the weather and today, the day temperature dipped,” said a Met department official.

Since Monday night, fog had started engulfing the city. In the morning, the city was covered in dense fog that lingered throughout the day.

Some places received intermittent rain and there was snowfall in the upper reaches of Sikkim.

“It was a contrasting experience. A few days ago I was in Calcutta, where I didn’t feel much cold. I had occasionally switched on the fan as it was quite warm. But when I reached New Jalpaiguri station this morning, it was pretty cold. There was also dense fog,” said Tarun Dutta, a salesperson based in Siliguri.

Weather experts said similar weather conditions would prevail in the next two-three days.

Darjeeling’s minimum temperature in the past 24 hours was five degrees, while it was 8.2 degrees in Gangtok and 12.8 degrees in Siliguri.