Fog back in Delhi as AQI plunges to ‘very poor’ zone
Delhi’s minimum temperature rose to 7 degrees Celsius (°C), three degrees below the normal compared to 5.2°C a day before
A moderate layer of fog blanketed the Capital on Sunday after nine days, mildly disrupting transit services at the Delhi airport, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, adding that the fog soon dissipated into a shallow layer and cleared completely as the day progressed. The last time Delhi recorded moderate to dense fog was on February 3, when visibility at Palam dropped to 50 metres.
Meanwhile, the quality of air continued to deteriorate, slashing the 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) by 48 points — it was recorded at 313 (very poor) at 4pm, compared to a reading of 295 (very poor) at the same time on Saturday, according to the Central Pollution Control Board’s national bulletin.
Weather officials attributed the moderate fog and the slump in air quality to the stoppage of strong winds approaching from the north-west, which swept the city for five consecutive days until Friday.
Airport authorities said that about 10 flights were diverted to Jaipur due to the fog, with no major delays. “The fog formation was a result of the surface winds stopping completely. When the wind speed is high, no stagnant fog can be seen. Fog is formed when the temperature is low, humidity is high and wind speeds are negligible,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president of Skymet, a private weather forecaster.
IMD officials said a layer of moderate fog covered pockets of Delhi for a couple of hours in the early part, and visibility was recorded around 500m at Palam and Safdarjung at 5.30am.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s minimum temperature rose to 7 degrees Celsius (°C), three degrees below the normal compared to 5.2°C a day before. The maximum was recorded at 24.6°C degrees, a degree above Saturday’s 23.6°C.
IMD has forecast the maximum to oscillate between 24°C and 26°C throughout the week. The minimum is expected to rise to 11°C by Wednesday and then go down a couple of notches by the end of the week.
“The sky will mostly be clear during the day on Monday and then become partly cloudy towards the night. A shallow fog might be observed in the early hours for the next two days, with a possibility of a very light drizzle on Wednesday due to some wind from the north-west,” said an IMD official,
Forecasts by the Early Warning System (EWS) for Delhi, an air quality forecasting model under the ministry of earth sciences, showed the AQI would remain “very poor” till February 14.