Delhi air quality: Situation to improve in next 2 days, rain expected to settle dust, says IMD

As Delhi continues to reel under poor air quality, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday said the situation would improve in the next two days as rain is expected. What rain does is that it settles down the particle matter, commonly referred to as PM10 and PM2.5, which is the main cause of poor air quality in Delhi.

The PM10 level (presence of particles with diameter less than 10 mm) was recorded at 626 in Delhi-NCR and 650 in Delhi, leading to hazy conditions. The PM2.5 level (presence of particles with diameter less than 2.5 mm) that deteriorated from "very poor" to "severe" showed improvement today at 164 in Delhi region and 162 in Delhi-NCR, the CPCB data said.

"The impact of dust has gone down since last evening. It is unlikely that the dust situation will persist in the days to come, because we are expecting rain and squally weather in the next two days," Sunita Devi, a scientist at IMD, told news agency ANI today (June 16).

The air quality index or AQI at North Campus, Delhi University was 495, 465 in Noida and 467 in Ghaziabad. An air quality index (AQI) between 0-50 is considered "Good", 51-100 "Satisfactory", 101-200 "Moderate", 201-300 "Poor", 301-400 "Very Poor", and 401-500 "Severe".

"Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, western parts of UP, western Himalayan regions are expected to experience thunderstorm, rainfall and squally winds in coming days," Devi added.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) earlier said that strong dust raising winds of the order of 2,5-35 kmph is likely to continue over Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi during the next 24 hours.

It also forecast thunderstorms at isolated places over the city in the coming days, bringing relief from the dusty air.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal had yesterday ordered stoppage of all civil construction activities across the city till Sunday as part of the emergency.