Dense fog to linger through evening commute

By Mashaun D. Simon and Mike Morris

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It's going to be a slog of a commute tonight, as the heavy fog that settled on metro Atlanta Sunday lingers through Monday evening.

Visibility was improving slightly by late afternoon but was still murky at 3 p.m. In the city of Atlanta, visibility remained at 1/4 of a mile, though it increased to 3/4 mile in some suburbs of the city.

The Weather Service was predicting the fog would linger until a thunderstorm flushes it out tonight around 8.

Monday's fog slowed the morning commute and delayed flights for the second straight day.

The fog was gumming up Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. At 3 p.m., it was delaying some arriving flights at an average of one hour, 35 minutes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, up from an hour and 12 minutes earlier in the day. General departure delays of 16 to 30  minutes, and increasing, were also reported at 3 p.m.

Fog on Sunday afternoon caused delays of nearly an hour.

The Weather Service reported visibility at 3 p.m. of 3/8 of a mile in Marietta, up from 5/16 of a mile earlier in the day. In Chamblee, visibility increased to 3/4 of a mile, up from the 1/4 of a mile reported earlier.

There were several multi-car crashes during the early stages of the foggy morning commute, including a four-vehicle wreck that blocked five lanes of the northbound Downtown Connector before University Avenue at 6:30 a.m. Just south of there, five vehicles were involved in a wreck on I-75 northbound before Cleveland Avenue, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Forecasters expect it to rain tonight, with thunderstorms continuing into the morning. The Weather Service is calling for a quarter of an inch to half of an inch.

-- Staff reporters Ty Tagami, Megan Matteucci and Marcus K. Garner contrinued to this report.