North India Continues To Shiver While Delhi Braves Cold Wave As AQI Drops To 'Severe' Category
Minimum temperatures in the national capital settled at 4.6 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season's average. The dip in temperature and drop in visibility also saw several trains and flights getting delayed.
The whole of North India is braving cold weather conditions for almost a week. There is however a mild respite from the dipping temperatures as Delhi-NCR region managed to see sunlight for the past two days. Despite that, temperatures continued to plummet. Minimum temperatures in the national capital settled at 4.6 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season's average. The dip in temperature and drop in visibility also saw several trains and flights getting delayed.
According to railways, twenty-one trains were running late for up to five hours due to bad weather.
An official said the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani was delayed for five hours while the Malda-Delhi Farakka Express was delayed for four hours.
An official of the MeT department said the Safdarjung observatory recorded visibility at 300 metres at 8.30 am.
"The skies will remain partly cloudy and the maximum temperature is expected to settle at 20 degrees Celsius," the official said.
It is not only the temperatures that is giving Delhiites the chills, the air they're breathing is not healthy at all.
People in Delhi are still gasping for a breath of fresh air as the air quality index of the national capital and its adjoining areas remained in the 'severe' (473 AQI) category on Thursday.
According to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of the national capital was 426 with PM10 docking at 407 and PM 2.5 at 276 at 9 in the morning on Thursday.
In Noida also, the air quality was not satisfactory in the morning as the AQI at PM 10 was 359 and PM 2.5 at 424.
According to SAFAR, "Under the influence of approaching western disturbance, increased surface winds and improved ventilation, AQI is forecasted to improve to the higher-end of the very poor category by the January 2."
Further significant improvement in AQI towards the middle-end of very poor to poor category is expecting by January 3. The organisation further predicted that tomorrow's (Friday) top three air pollution hot spots of the capital are likely to be Vinobapuri, Okhla and Bawana.
In an advisory, SAFAR has advised citizens to avoid physical outdoor activities including morning walks. "Stop any physical activity if you feel unusual coughing, chest discomfort, breathing difficulty or fatigue," it said.
It has also advised people to keep windows of their houses closed and asthmatics to keep medicines handy.
(With agency inputs)
