Noida air quality still ‘very poor’
NOIDA: A slight increase in wind speed on Wednesday improved Noida’s air quality, but still read “very poor” on the central pollution control board’s (CPCB’S) air quality index (AQI). Ghaziabad was the most polluted city in the country for the second straight day.
According to the pollution monitoring agencies, the air quality is likely to marginally deteriorate due to poor ventilation conditions for next three days.
Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad slipped into the “very poor” category on February 8 after oscillating within moderate and poor category for three days – February 6 to 8 (the only days since January 9 that the city stepped out of the “very poor” and “severe” levels).
The weather department stated that the wind speed on Wednesday wasn’t fast enough to disperse particles.
“The wind speed and temperature both soared slightly on Wednesday leading to slight better ventilation as compared to Tuesday. The wind directions are now north-westerly by Wednesday evening and the maximum speed realised was 12 kmph against 5 kmph a day earlier. Thursday will see almost similar weather conditions,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.
Meanwhile, the India Meteorological department (IMD) forecasted almost similar weather conditions on Thursday as on Wednesday with moderate fog in the morning hours in open areas and a slight drop on the maximum and minimum temperature by a degrees Celsius.
On Wednesday, the maximum and minimum temperature for Noida was recorded at 12.3 degrees Celsius and 24 degrees respectively against 25.9 degrees and 10.3 degrees Celsius a day earlier.
According to the IMD, the maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to hover around 29 degrees Celsius and 9 degrees Celsius on Thursday.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the air quality index (AQI) of Noida on a scale of 0 to 500, on Wednesday was 311 against 347 on Tuesday. Greater Noida’s AQI was 344 against 348 a day earlier. The AQI of Ghaziabad was 356 – top most pollute city of country for the two days in row -- against 374 on Tuesday.
The AQI between 101 to 200 is considered ‘moderate’, between 201 and 300 is ‘poor’, between 301 and 400 is considered ‘verypoor’ and above 400 is considered ‘severe’.
According to the System of air quality and weather forecasting and research (SAFAR), air quality will deteriorate. “Surface winds are low which is likely to reduce ventilation coefficient slightly and hence AQI is likely to marginally deteriorate but predicted to remain within the Very Poor category for the next three days,” it said.