Delhi’s air quality improves, enters ‘moderate’ category

Delhi recorded a minimum temperature of 8.6°C on Wednesday morning, a drop of 1.3°C as compared to Tuesday’s minimum of 9.9°C

Delhi’s air quality improved further on Wednesday, touching a reading of 158 (moderate) at 9am on Wednesday -- a drop from Tuesday’s reading of 192 (moderate) recorded at 4pm, according to the central pollution control board’s national bulletin.

Delhi had recorded wind speeds touching 35 km/hr on Tuesday. (Representative file image)

Air quality index from 0 to 100 is considered as good, while from 100 to 200 it is moderate, from 200 to 300 it is poor, and from 300 to 400 it is said to be very poor and from 400 to 500 or above it is considered as severe.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasts strong surface winds to continue, touching a speed of 30 km/hr during the day, accompanied by partly cloudy skies, with air quality likely to improve even further during the rest of the day.

Delhi recorded a minimum temperature of 8.6°C on Wednesday morning, a drop of 1.3°C as compared to Tuesday’s minimum of 9.9°C.

The maximum is meanwhile expected to hover around the 20-degree mark.

In comparison, Delhi had recorded a maximum of 20.2°C on Tuesday, which is 2°C below normal for this time of the year.

Delhi had recorded wind speeds touching 35 km/hr on Tuesday.

While dense fog was recorded over Delhi on Tuesday morning, there was only shallow fog recorded on Wednesday, with the lowest visibility recorded at 500 metres at both Safdarjung and Palam.

An IMD official said cold northwesterly winds had returned, which led to a slight dip in minimum temperature, however, the dip is not expected to continue at the same rate in the next two days.

“Delhi’s minimum may dip by another degree or so in the next 48 hours, but it will not dip further than that. At the same time, as skies become clear, the maximum will start rising gradually once more.” said the official.

Delhi’s maximum is forecast to rise to 21°C by Thursday, to 22°C by Friday and is expected to touch 23°C by Saturday. The minimum will meanwhile oscillate between 8-9°C.

The capital ended January with an average monthly minimum temperature of 6.6°C, making it Delhi’s lowest for January since it was 6.1°C in 2013.

Both the average monthly maximum and minimum were below normal, with the average maximum of 19.7°C, 0.4 degrees below normal, while the average minimum was 0.9 degrees below normal.

In terms of air quality, Delhi ended January with a ‘moderate’ air day, but the average air quality index (AQI) was 311, making it more polluted than January last year, when it was 279, but less polluted than 2021, when the average AQI was 324.