Delhi air turns ‘severe’, may see slight improvement today

Meanwhile, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) bulletin, the maximum temperature in the Capital settled at 22.7 degrees Celsius, around 3 degrees above normal, on Sunday while the minimum temperature settled at 5.3 degree Celsius, 2.3 notches below normal.

Data from Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology Pune’s Decision Support System (DSS) showed that transport emissions remained the top contributor to Delhi’s PM2.5 load at 10.6%, followed by the industrial sector at 7.7%. Among neighbouring regions, Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh emerged as the highest external contributor at 15.4%, followed by Ghaziabad at 12.2%.

Highly unfavourable weather and meteorological conditions, and lack of dispersal of pollutants are among the factors that have led to the deterioration of the air quality in the Capital.

The air quality is likely to improve from Monday and remain in the ‘Very Poor’ category till Wednesday. The outlook for the subsequent days this week suggests air quality is likely to fluctuate between the ‘Very Poor’ and ‘Poor’ categories.

On Sunday, dense fog prevailed in most parts of the city during morning hours with the IMD issuing a yellow alert. The weather office has predicted dense fog at isolated places across the city for Monday morning with maximum and minimum temperature expected to hover around 25 and 8 degrees Celsius, respectively.