The air quality of Delhi and Noida deteriorated to ‘very poor’ category and Gurugram’s to ‘poor’ category, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data.
The national capital’s air quality is expected to further worsen over the next few days.
“The AQI is likely to slip from the middle to the higher end of ‘very poor’ by tomorrow [Thursday]. Extremely low ventilation conditions and lowering of boundary layer height are forecast for Friday,” said government-run monitoring agency SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research).
The effect of stubble burning on the city’s air quality remained low on Wednesday. Also, the speed of surface-level winds was “low”, which aided in accumulation of pollutants near the surface.
The “mixing layer height”, which is the height from the ground level up to which pollutants can be dispersed, was “moderate”. This led to lesser accumulation of pollutants near the surface.
The AQI of Delhi was 354 on Wednesday, up from 293 on Tuesday, as per CPCB’s 4 p.m. bulletin, which is an average of the past 24 hours. The values for Gurugram and Noida were 276 and 348 respectively.
An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.
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