Delhi-NCR’s air quality bordered “severe” levels on Monday with more farm fire plume blowing towards the region, and a decrease in the wind speed and temperature hampering dispersion of pollutants.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences’ air quality monitor, SAFAR, said the air quality will turn “severe” on Tuesday.
On Monday, the city’s overall air quality index read 360 at 4 pm, up from 321 on Sunday.
The monitoring stations at Nehru Nagar (406), Ashok Vihar (402), Rohini (414), Vivek Vihar (406), Wazirpur (409), Bawana (414), Mundka (413), and Anand Vihar (412) recorded the air quality in the “severe” category.
Pollution levels in Ghaziabad also entered “severe” levels towards the evening, and increased in Greater Noida (392) and Noida (400).
An AQI between 201 and 300 is considered ‘poor’, 301-400 ‘very poor’ and 401-500 ‘severe’.
An AQI above 500 falls in the ‘severe plus’ category.
Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the India Meteorological Department’s regional weather forecasting centre, said the spike in pollution levels can be attributed to a significant decline in the wind speed from 20 kilometers per hour over the last two days to 10 kilometers per hour on Monday.
