Delhi Air Quality update: Minor relief for Delhiites as AQI ‘improves’ to…, ‘severe’ AQI recorded in…

Delhi Air Quality: In a minor relief for Delhi residents, air quality in the national capital witnessed a marginal improvement on Sunday, with the city recording an overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of 377, in the ‘very poor’ category during morning hours.

Delhi air quality improves

According to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, Delhi logged an overall AQI reading of 377, with data from Sameer app showing that 16 of the city’s 40 monitoring stations reporting air quality levels in the ‘severe’ category, while the remaining recorded ‘very poor’ levels.

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 to 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 to 200 ‘moderate’, 201 to 300 ‘poor’, 301 to 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 to 500 ‘severe’, according to the CPCB classification.

Low-visibility hits flight ops at Delhi airport

Meanwhile, a thick blanket of dense covered engulfed Delhi on Sunday morning, significantly reducing visibility across the capital city, affecting flight operations. Among the key weather monitoring stations, Palam recorded its lowest visibility at 300 metres due to moderate fog between 10 pm and 12.30 am IST, according to the India(BHARAT) Meteorological Department (IMD).

As per the IMD, visibility improved to 600 metres in shallow fog but fell back to 350 metres, with east-southeasterly winds blowing at a speed of 7 kilometres per hour. At Safdarjung, the visibility dropped to its lowest at 200 metres in moderate fog between 1.30 am and 2.30 am IST. It gradually improved to 500 metres in shallow fog by 5.30 am, it said.

According to officials, airline operations were affected at the Delhi Airport as a total of total of 110 flights were cancelled and over 370 were delayed on Sunday due to low-visibility caused by a thick blanket of dense fog across the national capital.

IMD predicts foggy weather

On the weather front, Delhi’s minimum temperature settled at 9.4 degrees Celsius, 1.3 degrees above the season’s average whereas the maximum temperature settled at 18.1 degrees Celsius. The humidity was recorded at 100 per cent at 5.30 pm, as per IMD.

The weather department has forecast moderate fog on Monday with maximum and minimum temperature expected to hover around 21 degrees Celsius and 9 degrees Celsius, respectively.