Despite clear skies on Delhi weather forecast, air quality to dip this week

The IMD, in its extended range forecast for a week from Thursday (October 3), forecasts the monsoon withdrawal, which is long past its due on September 25, to be nearly complete in northwest India.

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The relative humidity oscillated between 66 per cent and 86 per cent. (File Photo)

Despite the Met department’s prediction of mostly clear skies in the Capital, a drop in wind speeds and a shift in wind direction will result in deteriorating air quality in Delhi until Wednesday (October 2), according to a forecast by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM).

Although Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) was at 76 in the ‘satisfactory’ category on Sunday, due to unfavourable meteorological conditions such as a decrease in wind speeds as well as a shift in wind direction to the northwest, IITM forecasts ‘moderate’ air quality till Wednesday.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), mostly clear skies will prevail in Delhi, barring Monday’s forecast of a partly cloudy sky. The maximum and minimum temperatures will be around 35 and 25 degrees Celsius, respectively. At 25.2, the minimum temperature Sunday was two degrees Celsius above normal and the maximum was normal at 34.7 degrees Celsius.

The relative humidity oscillated between 66 per cent and 86 per cent. The IMD, in its extended range forecast for a week from Thursday (October 3), forecasts the monsoon withdrawal, which is long past its due on September 25, to be nearly complete in northwest India.

Incidentally, on September 25, mid-way through its 10-day streak of dry spells, Delhi saw a spike in its pollution levels with the air quality dipping to the ‘poor’ category, before recovering in the following days.

According to the ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute, until September 26, 176 paddy-residue burning cases have been reported from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.

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