City air quality may turn ‘severe’ again in 48 hours

New Delhi: After recording a relatively clean spell for the past couple of days, Delhi’s air quality is set to deteriorate and could touch ‘severe’ levels in the next 48 hours, forecasts show. Delhi’s overall Air Quality Index (AQI), which was in the ‘poor’ range on both Monday and Tuesday, could touch ‘very poor’ by Wednesday and deteriorate to ‘severe’ by Thursday, due to unfavourable conditions, including low wind speed and high moisture content in the air.

Wind speeds, which had touched 36 km/hr over the weekend, fell to around 10-12 km/hr on Tuesday and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast a speed of 6-8 km/hr for the next three days along with spells of shallow to moderate fog.

Officials from the regional meteorological department also said the temperature could fall to around 11 degrees on Wednesday, owing to cold north-westerly winds and clear skies in the region.

“Air quality may deteriorate once again with shallow to moderate fog expected from Wednesday onwards. Low wind speed, a low boundary layer and high moisture content in the air is likely to cause an increase in pollution once again,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, scientist at IMD.

He said relief was expected only around November 23, when wind speeds pick up in the region. Delhi’s AQI was recorded at 242 (poor) on Tuesday.

The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) said, said fire counts from stubble burning are increasing once again, which may lead to an increase in the share of contribution.