NEW DELHI: The weather in the national capital has begun changing, with the winter season nearing, but weather experts say the air quality might deteriorate in the next three days.
“The temperature has been around 27 degrees Celsius, while the minimum temperature was between 11 and 12 degrees, and will go up in the coming days. The air quality will deteriorate in the next three days as the wind speed is expected to slow down,” said Dr Kuldeep Srivastava, senior scientist at the India Meteorological Department.
The air quality has improved since last weekend, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) recorded in the “poor” category on Tuesday. The AQI had reached the 500 mark, which comes under the emergency category, at several places in Delhi and the National Capital Region last week.
As per the Ministry of Earth Science’s System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) , the overall AQI in Delhi has come down to 269, while last week it was above 400 most of the time. Its prediction for Wednesday is 353, which is an indication that the wind might slow down.
Bad days ahead
The AQI is forecast to deteriorate to the higher end of the very poor category by Wednesday and then to the lower end of the severe category.