Heavy fog prevents flights from landing at Brisbane Airport

Thick fog has prevented flights from landing at Brisbane Airport, with visibility dropping to just 50m, while warnings were issued over dangerous road conditions.

Fog blankets the Brisbane River

A thick blanket of fog that stretched from Moreton Bay to Ipswich for more than 10 hours, dropping visibility to just 50m, was caused by a freak combination of overnight weather events.

The fog rolled in around 10pm and was still causing issues at 8.30am, with visibility dropping to as low as 50m at the Brisbane Airport, forcing flights to be diverted and triggering dangerous road conditions.

Only the tops of skyscrapers can be seen during heavy fog this morning. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Brisbane CBD from Mt Coot-tha. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

BOM senior meteorologist Harry Clark said the fog stretched from Moreton Bay to Brisbane’s western suburbs.

“We have seen some pretty thick fog too, so the visibility has been as low as 50m at Brisbane Airport overnight,” he said at 8am.

“Currently, it has improved a little bit to around 250m, so it is starting to slowly thin out but certainly it is still fairly foggy at this point.”

Mr Clark said the fog was caused by moisture from north-easterly winds and cool air.

“We did have north-easterly winds in the last 24 hours, that’s pumped in a lot of moisture from the ocean,” he said.

“We also had, if you remember, that shower that moved across yesterday around sort of lunchtime or so and that would have added a bit of extra moisture to the surface.

Motorists were warned to drive to conditions. Picture: Ken/South Brisbane Storms

Fog prevented planes from landing at Brisbane Airport. Picture: Queensland Planespotters/Tom Carmichael

“You also need the air to cool so it reaches the saturation point and basically overnight we had enough clear sky to get that cooling so the result was that moisture turned into clouds basically on the ground as the temperature cooled.”

Mr Clark said Queensland was likely to see some rainfall today and into the weekend.

“Today, we will see really just a few isolated showers around similar, not particularly heavy or widespread,” he said.

Thick fog over the Brisbane CBD this morning.

Crowds at Mt Coot-Tha this morning. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

“As we go into tomorrow, though, we do have a cloud band that’s moving east across Queensland and moving east across much of Australia – it’s quite extensive.

“It will start to move into South East Queensland as the day wears on tomorrow.

“We will see rain increasing tomorrow into the evening.

“In terms of rainfall totals, 5-15mm, 20mm totals are possible and that will continue to early Sunday morning.”

Across the morning 10 flights were diverted to the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Cairns, while others were only able to land in Brisbane after long holding patterns.

The conditions left The Today show host Karl Stefanovic asking “Are you alive Brissy?” when the city was not visible in a live cross.

A plane takes off during this morning’s fog. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Bureau of Meteorology at 6.20am issued a road weather alert for dangerous conditions, with Queensland Police urging motorists to drive to conditions.

Brisbane Airport spokesman Peter Doherty said flights had finally been able to start landing after 8.45am.

“The fog is now rapidly clearing and flights are landing,” Mr Doherty said.

“There will be residual impacts due to earlier diversions.”

Travellers are urged to check the Brisbane Airport website for updated flight arrival and departure times.

Earlier, Mr Doherty described conditions as a “pea souper”. He said those flights that were diverted would refuel and return to Brisbane when possible.

However, he said if crews ran out of hours because they had done long international hauls, they would have to reassess.

The fog was thick at Rochedale South. Picture: Christine Lowe.