Noida air ‘severe’, likely to worsen in coming days
Region may see year’s first extended extreme pollution event; expect dense fog over weekend
NOIDA: After oscillating between ‘very poor’ to ‘moderate’ categories of air quality for the past eleven days, the air quality of Noida and adjoining cities, including Greater Noida and Ghaziabad, turned ‘severe’ on Thursday.
Monitoring agencies stated that pollution levels will likely go up further. “The wind speed on Thursday dropped to almost calm towards evening and morning, and the highest it reached towards the afternoon was 6 kmph. So dispersion was negligible. The weather conditions will remain almost same towards Friday,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre,
India Meteorological Department (IMD).
According to the System of air quality and weather forecasting and research (SAFAR), the AQI is likely to deteriorate further over three days.
“The AQI is forecasted to deteriorate rapidly in the next three days. SAFAR forecast reveals AQI will be in the higher end of ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ Friday and then will enter in the ‘severe’ category for 16-17 January. This is likely to be the first extended extreme air pollution event for 2021. The combination of dense fog formation leading to secondary particulate formation under congenial conditions of high humidity, extremely low ventilation and shallow boundary layer height is a major reason for the predicted smog episode,” said SAFAR on Thursday.
City shivers at 4°C, dense fog likely for three days
With neighbouring Delhi and parts of western Uttar Pradesh experiencing extreme cold waves, Noida too shivered at 4.4 degrees Celsius on Thursday.
The mercury may fall, oscillating between 3 and 5° on an average for the national capital region over next three day till Sunday, said the weather department.
The region, will see dense fog from 4am for the next three days till Sunday. “Weather conditions will be almost similar for most of NCR and western UP for next three days from Friday,” said Srivastava.
He added the region will also see fog for the next seven days, of which the next three days will see dense to very dense fog.
On Thursday, the minimum temperature for Noida was recorded at 4.4° Celsius. The maximum was 19.3°. On Friday, the average minimum and maximum temperatures are likely to hover around 5 degrees and 19 degrees Celsius respectively, the IMD stated.