Commuters walk past a wall mural in New Delhi. (PTI Photo/ Manvender Vashist, File) Thunderstorms are on the forecast for Delhi-NCR on Friday, along with a maximum temperature of around 26 degrees Celsius. The minimum temperature recorded early on Friday was 12.5 degrees Celsius at the Safdarjung weather observatory.
On Thursday, the maximum temperature stood at 26.4 degrees Celsius.
The relative humidity at 8.30 am on Friday was 93%, and the temperature at the same time was 13.8 degrees Celsius.
While a western disturbance lies over Jammu and Kashmir and north Pakistan, another western disturbance lies over northeast Afghanistan. In addition to Delhi, rainfall is also on the forecast for Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and West Uttar Pradesh over the next two days.
Another western disturbance is slated to affect northwest India from February 28 onwards. It is likely to cause light to moderate rainfall or snowfall over the Western Himalayan region, and isolated rainfall over northwest India on March 1 and 2, according to an update issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday morning.
On Thursday, the air quality in Delhi deteriorated to reach the ‘very poor’ category, with an AQI of 307. The AQI had been in the ‘poor’ or ‘moderate’ category over the past week. On Friday, the AQI is likely to be in the ‘poor’ category, according to a forecast issued by the Air Quality Early Warning System on Thursday. With rainfall and stronger winds, the AQI is likely to improve and reach the ‘moderate’ category on Saturday, the forecast indicates.
Wind speed was predicted to be around 4 kmph on Thursday, and 4 to 6 kmph on Friday, with surface winds likely to remain calm during the morning hours on Friday. An average wind speed of less than 10 kmph is not favourable for the dispersion of pollutants, as per the forecast.
Most monitoring stations recorded 24-hour average AQI in the ‘very poor’ category at 9 am on Friday. At Chandni Chowk, the AQI was 313, while it was 334 at Anand Vihar, and 335 at Jahangirpuri.
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