After a brief relief that lasted just two days, Delhi recorded an air quality index (AQI) of 307 in the ‘Very Poor’ category on Sunday.
The city breathed easier the previous two days with an AQI of 276 recorded on Saturday, and 236 on Friday in the ‘Poor’ category. Air quality plunged in the ‘Very Poor’ category in neighbouring Noida and Gurgaon too as the AQI stood at 307 and 333 in the two cities, respectively, compared to 242 and 244 the day before.
While increased wind speed had earlier helped improve air quality, the IMD had underlined in its forecast for the weekend that a deterioration was expected Sunday onwards due to reduced wind speed.
Meanwhile, data from Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune’s Decision Support System (DSS) on Sunday showed that transport emissions remained the top contributor to Delhi’s PM2.5 load at 13.6%, followed by the industrial sector at 11.4%. Residential emissions accounted for 3.3% while waste burning, construction activity and road dust together contributed about 5%. Among neighbouring regions, Jhajjar emerged as the highest external contributor at 17.5%, followed by Sonipat at 7.7%.
According to the IMD, the maximum and minimum temperatures over Delhi were around 16°C to 18°C and 7°C to 9°C respectively.
The sky is likely to be partly cloudy during next 24 hours and mainly clear for the subsequent four days and partly cloudy thereafter, the weather officer said, predicting shallow fog during night on January 4.
Shallow to moderate fog would prevail over most parts of the city during morning hours thereafter, it added.