Air quality slips back into ‘poor’ category due to slow winds, falling temperature

The city’s air quality slipped back into the “poor” category on Saturday, recording a reading of 204 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s(CPCB) daily air quality

The city’s air quality slipped back into the “poor” category on Saturday, recording a reading of 204 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s(CPCB) daily air quality index (AQI) bulletin — a significant deterioration from Friday’s AQI reading of 107, which was in the “moderate” category. Experts attributed the deterioration to slow wind speeds and the falling temperature.

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The level of ultrafine particulate matter having a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM 2.5) — the city’s primary pollutant — was recorded at 109 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) on Saturday, as per the data by CPCB’s air quality monitor at Vikas Sadan in Sector 11. The concentration of PM2.5 pollutants on the previous day stood at 167ug/m3.

According to the early air quality warning system for the National Capital Region (NCR), the air quality is likely to remain in the “poor” to the lower end of “very poor” category on Sunday. Air quality is expected to remain in the “very poor” category on Monday.

Sachin Panwar, a city-based independent air quality scientist, said that the AQI is expected to deteriorate further as the temperature falls gradually. “The winds were not strong enough to disperse the pollutants. At the same time, the morning temperature is decreasing day by day. Once fog starts persisting in the morning hours, accumulation will increase and air quality will become bad,” said Panwar.

Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre, said the air quality would deteriorate in the coming days due to slow wind speed. “From November 30, the wind speed is likely to slow down. Now, because a western disturbance is passing, the winds have picked up speed, but it will slow down again. The temperature will also go down once the western disturbance passes,” he said.

The minimum temperature of Gurugram settled at 10.5 degrees Celsius on Saturday, same as the previous day. The city recorded a maximum temperature of 24.6 degrees Celsius on Thursday, marginally less than 25.1 degrees Celsius the day prior. As per the IMD’s weekly forecast, the maximum temperature will hover around 26 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperature is expected to stay at 10 degrees. As per the weekly forecast, clear skies will prevail on Sunday.