City air continues to be ‘very poor’ for fourth day in a row

Air quality in the city remained “very poor” for the fourth consecutive day on Friday, recording 302 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index (AQI)

Air quality in the city remained “very poor” for the fourth consecutive day on Friday, recording 302 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index (AQI) bulletin. This was a marginal improvement from the previous day’s recording of 361 in the same category. The level of particulate matter (PM) 2.5, the city’s primary pollutant, was 427.8 µg/m³ on Friday, as per the data recorded by the CPCB’s air quality monitor at Vikas Sadan in Sector 11.

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According to the early air quality warning system for Delhi-NCR, the air quality is likely to deteriorate marginally owing to slow winds and poor ventilation but remain in the “very poor” category on Saturday. Air quality is expected to stay in the upper end of the “very poor” to “severe category” on Sunday. Subsequently, air quality is likely to remain in the “very poor” category over the next five days. Experts attributed the marginal improvement in air quality to stronger surface winds, which aided ventilation thereby resulting in improvement in air quality.

On Friday, the city recorded a minimum temperature of 6.5 degrees Celsius — a slight decrease from Thursday’s 6 degrees Celsius. The maximum temperature on Friday was recorded at 21.1 degrees Celsius, a degree below 22.3 degrees Celsius the previous day. The maximum temperature is expected to stay around 23 degrees on Sunday while the minimum temperature is expected to hover around 6 degrees, as per the IMD’s weekly forecast. Dense fog is expected to prevail in the morning hours followed by clear skies during the day as per the forecast.

Sachin Panwar, a city-based air quality scientist, said that winds blowing at eight to ten kilometres per hour could have aided the improved movement of pollutants.As per the IMD’s official bulletin issued on Friday, isolated dense fog over Haryana is likely in the morning hours on Saturday. Further, an active Western Disturbance is likely to affect Western Himalayan Region and adjoining plains of northwest India from December 27. Dense fog conditions over Punjab and Haryana are likely to improve further under the impact of the Western Disturbance, stated the bulletin.

Kuldeep Shrivastava, heads of the IMD’s Regional Weather Forecasting Centre, said that the approaching Western Disturbance may cause light rain in Delhi-NCR on December 27 following which temperatures were likely to fall again.