New Delhi’s air quality plunges to ‘severe’ category; shallow fog likely today

New Delhi’s air quality plunged to the “severe” category on Friday morning with data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showing an hourly air quality index (AQI) reading of 403 at 7am

New Delhi’s air quality plunged to the “severe” category on Friday morning with data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showing an hourly air quality index (AQI) reading of 403 at 7am.

People commute along a street amid smoggy conditions in New Delhi on Thursday. Delhi’s air quality worsened to ‘severe’ on Friday morning. (AFP)

On Thursday, the average 24-hour AQI was 400.

The CPCB classifies an AQI of zero to 50 as “good”, 51-100 as “satisfactory”, 101-200 as “moderate”, 201-300 as “poor”, 301-400 as “very poor” and above 401 as “severe”.

On the weather front, New Delhi is likely to see shallow fog on Friday, according to the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) forecast, while the minimum temperature was expected to 11 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature in the Capital on Friday was likely to reach 28 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, the maximum temperature was 27.8 degrees Celsius, a notch above normal, while the lowest was 9.7 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, the ministry of earth sciences’ air quality monitoring centre, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), said, “The AQI today indicates ‘very poor’ category. Local surface winds are relatively low for the next three days that reduces dispersion of pollutants leading to deterioration of air quality, but within the ‘upper end of very poor’ category for the next three days.”

SAFAR added, “On November 29, local surface winds are likely to increase resulting in an improvement in the air quality… Local emissions and weather are likely to be the dominant factors controlling air quality. The effective fire count is 219 and its share in New Delhi’s PM2.5 is 6%.”