NEW DELHI: Hours before Diwali, the city’s air quality dropped to season’s worst on Saturday, due to decrease speed of the wind affecting the dispersion of dust particles.
“The decrease in wind speed has started to negatively influence Delhi’s air quality by drastically decreasing ventilation coefficients and thereby affecting dispersion,” said the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR).
SAFAR showed the PM 10 count as 261 under “poor” and toxic PM 2.5 level was recorded to be 122 under “very poor” category. The organisation has predicted that today, the air quality will get even worse. The AQI is expected to be around 324.
With the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting rising smoke levels for the next two days, the maximum temperature is going to revolve around 31. It will be accompanied with mist and smoke on Sunday.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) was oscillating between “poor” and “very poor” on Saturday across several areas in the city. At least seven areas had a “very poor” AQI category including Lodhi Road with 314 and Dwarka Sector 8’s AQI was recorded 314.
At 8 pm, the AQI was recorded to be 342 in Bawana, 359 in Anand Vihar, 329 in Wazirpur, 319 in Rohini, 342 in Mundka and 318 in DTU. Similarly, the AQI in other areas of central and south Delhi was poor as well.
At ITO, the AQI was under poor category with 285 reading, while at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium it was recorded at 285 and 264 at Mandir Marg.