Dense fog likely, air quality gets worse

Noida: The city and its adjoining areas are likely to witness dense fog and haze for the next two days due to low wind speed, leading to rise in the air pollution levels, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday

Noida: The city and its adjoining areas are likely to witness dense fog and haze for the next two days due to low wind speed, leading to rise in the air pollution levels, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.

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On Friday, Noida, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida were the top three polluted cities of country -- a second in the past four days -- with the pollution monitoring agencies seeing no respite for the next three days.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the air quality index (AQI) of Ghaziabad on Friday was 375 (‘very poor’) -- worst in the country just like on February 9 and 10 -- against 356 on Thursday. Similarly, Noida’s AQI was 363 -- second most polluted city in country -- against 311 a day earlier, followed by Greater Noida with an AQI value of 352 against 344 a day earlier.

An AQI between 101 to 200 is considered ‘moderate’, between 201 and 300 is ‘poor’, between 301 and 400 is ‘very poor’ and above 400 is considered ‘severe’.

According to weather analysts, the wind speed on Friday dropped as the region fell into a low pressure area and is likely to continue to be so till Sunday.

“The region will see dense fog on Saturday, bringing down the visibility to around 100 metres,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.

The experts said that temperatures are around season’s average only but the wind speed are very low. “Due to low wind speed during the morning hours, the condensation of moisture would continue. Also, since the low speed of winds leads to accumulation of particles, the haze formatting will be there. This could bring the visibility down to less than 100 metres from early morning hours to about 9am,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice-president (meteorology and climate change) at Skymet, a private weather forecasting agency.

Meanwhile, the minimum and maximum temperatures for Noida were recorded at 12.6 degrees and 26 degrees Celsius, respectively.

According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), not much change in the pollution situation is expected over the next few days. “Surface winds are low and wind speed is likely to marginally improve during day time. The ventilation is likely to stay in the same range and no significant change in AQI is expecting for the next couple of days. AQI is likely to stay in the very poor category for the next two days. AQI likely to marginally improve to lower end of very poor to poor category is forecasted for February 15,” said a SAFAR statement on Friday.