Noida air quality ‘severe’ as clouds cover the sky, rain forecast on Dec 12

The air quality in the region became ‘severely’ polluted again on Wednesday as the cloud cover increased making dissipation of pollutants difficult. Greater Noida

The air quality in the region became ‘severely’ polluted again on Wednesday as the cloud cover increased making dissipation of pollutants difficult. Greater Noida was the most-polluted city in the country, followed by Ghaziabad and Noida, showed data shared by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted rain and gusty winds on December 12 and 13, when favourable meteorological conditions are likely to help clean the air.

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Weather analysts have predicted a drop in maximum temperature and a rise in night temperature on Thursday and Friday, after which the overall mercury is likely to drop sharply.

“There are high chances of rain and thundershower in the region on Thursday and Friday. Showers would be accompanied by high speed winds. The air quality will improve either way as the rain will settle the pollutants and the winds will increase the ventilation index. For the next two days, the maximum temperatures will fall while minimum temperature may rise to 11 or 12 degrees Celsius,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the Regional Weather Forecasting Centre, IMD.

On Wednesday, the minimum temperature was 7.9 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season’s average but higher than the 7.4 degrees Celsius recorded a day earlier. The maximum temperature was recorded at 23.2 degrees Celsius against the season’s average of 22.8 degrees Celsius.

“The maximum temperature may drop to 19 degrees for next two days while the minimum temperature may rise to 12 degrees,” Srivastava said

IMD officials added that the fog will be dense to moderate in the early morning hours from December 14 onwards.

According to the CPCB, the air quality index (AQI) of Greater Noida on Wednesday, on a scale of 0 to 500 with zero being the cleanest air and 500 indicating emergency level of pollution, was 449 or ‘severe’ against 395 or ‘very-poor’ a day earlier. The AQI of Noida was 426 against 395 on Tuesday, and the AQI of Ghaziabad was 441 against 421 a day earlier, both ‘severe’.

According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the air quality will improve the ‘poor’ category over next two days.

“Under the influence of approaching Western Disturbance, increased wind speed and scattered rainfall is expected by tomorrow (Thursday) evening. The SAFAR model suggests an improvement in AQI towards the lower end of the ‘very poor’ category by Thursday, and by Friday, this will further improve and settle in the lower end of ‘poor’ to ‘moderate’ category,” a SAFAR forecast said, adding that only a few biomass fire were observed and no significant PM2.5 contribution, through biomass fires, is expecting in the coming days.