‘Very poor’ is the best air quality Noida sees in past six days

Noida: The air quality of Noida improved to ‘very poor’ category on Wednesday, making it the cleanest air that the city has seen in the past six days. Noida had

Noida: The air quality of Noida improved to ‘very poor’ category on Wednesday, making it the cleanest air that the city has seen in the past six days. Noida had been suffering ‘severe’ air quality since December 4, while the city’s air has not improved beyond ‘very poor’ levels this month so far.

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However, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida continued being under ‘severe’ air on Wednesday, with Ghaziabad for the six days in row and Greater Noida for the third day.

According to weather analysts, low wind speed, high humidity, and low temperatures are some of the major reasons that the local emissions could not be ventilated enough to make a significant positive effect on the air quality of the three cities.

The pollution monitoring agencies stated that the intrusion of stubble burning smoke from neighbouring Punjab and Haryana is still negligible.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), while the weather conditions, such as humidity and temperatures, were almost same as a day earlier, a slight increase in the wind speed let some improvement in the air quality. However, with weather conditions largely in favour of the pollution levels, the winds are not strong enough to ventilate the pollutants, IMD said.

“The wind speed on Wednesday was recorded at 8kmph. However, it was negligible during early morning and night hours. So whatever ventilation happened, it did so during the afternoon time. On Tuesday, the maximum wind speed was 5kmph. There are possibilities of rain between December 11 and 12 which may improve the air quality by washing the pollutants. However, prior to that the weather conditions will remain almost the same and not very strong to make a significant reduction of the pollutants,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the air quality index (AQI) of Noida on Wednesday, on a scale of 0 to 500, was 394 against 407 a day earlier.

Greater Noida’s air quality on Wednesday was 404 against 405 on Tuesday, while Ghaziabad also saw slight improvement with an AQI of 418 against 424 a day earlier, showed the CPCB data.

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

Though the fine particles or PM2.5 levels dropped, they still remained at least four times the safe standards.

The average PM2.5 level for past 24 hours in Noida was recorded at 259.5 microgrammes per cubic metres (µg/m³), against 270.52 µg/m³ a day earlier. The PM2.5 for Greater Noida was 278.07 µg/m³ against 269.46 on Tuesday.

The average PM2.5 level also lowered in Ghaziabad that was recorded at 291.12 µg/m³ on Wednesday against 314.33 µg/m³ on Tuesday. The safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 µg/m³.

According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), AQI is likely to deteriorate due to calm winds on Thursday.

“Calm surface winds are forecasted for tomorrow and AQI is forecasted to marginally deteriorate towards the high end of the very poor category. Thereafter, under the influence of fresh Western Disturbance, isolated to scattered rainfall is expected on 11th and 12th December, and AQI is likely to improve to the lower end of the very poor category by December 11,” said the SAFAR statement on Wednesday.