Overnight rain led to a visible improvement in Delhi’s air quality on Friday morning after more than a week of hazardous pollution.The improvement is expected to be reflected in the air quality index as the day progresses — the AQI at any given time is the average of readings taken in the last 24 hours.
At 7 am, Delhi’s AQI stood at 408, improving from 437 at 4 pm on Thursday.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had earlier predicted a marginal improvement in air quality just ahead of Diwali owing to favourable meteorological conditions, including light rain. IMD officials had also said a change in the wind direction from northwest to southeast due to a fresh western disturbance affecting northwest India will help reduce the contribution of smoke from stubble burning.
Once the western disturbance passes, the wind speed will increase from around five to six kilometres per hour at present to around 15 kilometres per hour on November 11, which will help disperse pollutants ahead of Diwali (November 12), an IMD official said.
According to data from the Decision Support System, a numerical model-based framework capable of identifying the sources of particulate matter pollution in Delhi, stubble burning in the neighbouring states, particularly Punjab and Haryana, accounted for 38 per cent of the air pollution in Delhi on Wednesday.
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