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Fog envelopes Delhi, air quality improves, mercury dips slightly
The visibility at Safdarjung, which is representative of Delhi’s weather, and Palam dropped to 100m at 5.30 am and continued to remain the same until 7.30am
Moderate to dense fog enveloped isolated places in the early hours of Wednesday even as Delhi’s air quality continued to improve and the minimum temperature dipped slightly but remained above average for a third consecutive day at 8.4°C, or 0.9°C above normal.
The minimum temperature was 9.9°C the day before. The mercury was expected to go up to around 22°C on Wednesday.
An India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said an alert was in place warning people of a dense fog. ”The skies should be mostly clear in the later half of the day.”
The visibility at Safdarjung, which is representative of Delhi’s weather, and Palam dropped to 100m at 5.30 am and continued to remain the same until 7.30 am. When the visibility is 500-1000m, it is classified as shallow fog. Moderate fog is when visibility is 200-500m, dense fog is when it is 50-100m and very dense fog is when it dips below 50m.
An air quality index (AQI) of 333 (very poor) was recorded at 9am on Wednesday compared to a 24-hour average of 369 (very poor) at 4pm a day earlier, which improved to 356 (very poor) by 9pm. The air quality was likely to remain “very poor” until Thursday
An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor”, and over 400 “severe”.
Pitampura and SPS Mayur Vihar weather stations recorded 0.5mm of rain between 5.30am and 8.30am on Wednesday. Thundershowers were expected on Friday in parts of Delhi due to the influence of an active western disturbance.
