Delhi Shrouded in Fog as Air Quality Stays ‘Very Poor’, AQI Remains High

New Delhi: In early hours of Saturday, the city of Delhi was observed to be experiencing moderate fog as the air quality deteriorated further with the air being in the state of very poor and the minimum temperature dropped to 6.1 degrees Celsius.

There was still an orange alert and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) indicated that there was a likelihood of moderate to dense fog in the afternoon. Sunday and Monday have also been put on a yellow alert.

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“Moderate fog is likely at many places in the city, with dense fog in isolated places,” an IMD official said.

The air quality index (AQI) stood at 384 at 8 am on Saturday with the readings slightly higher than the 24-hour average of 382 registered in Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data on Saturday afternoon.

In the meantime, Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) predictions on Delhi indicate that the AQI will reach the severe category at the end of the week.

“The air quality is likely to be in the very poor category on Saturday. The air quality is likely to be in the severe category from Sunday to Monday. The outlook for the subsequent six days is that the air quality is likely to be in the severe to very poor category,” the AQEWS bulletin said.

IMD data show that visibility on Palam was approximately 700 m at 1.30 am. Up to 8.30 am, the lowest visibility was recorded as 200 m at Safdarjung and 350m over Palam.

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IMD categorizes fog as shallow with a visibility of 500m to 1000m, moderate with 200m to 500m, dense with 50m to 200m and very dense with visibility less than 50m.

Based on the report of Flightradar24, the airport was still facing disruption and over 200 flights were already postponed by 9 am.

The lowest temperature, on the other hand, was sharply reduced and was recorded at 6.1 degrees Celsius which is two degrees lower than normal. It was recorded to be at 9 degrees Celsius the day before.

As the temperatures are likely to decrease over the weekend and the wind velocity is going to be slow, professionals were worried about the fact that the level of pollution might increase further because of the temperature inversion and poor weather conditions.

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