Delhi chokes less, freezes more; AQI ‘improves’ to poor but temp drops to 5.7 deg C

DElhi's boilersuit beam lineament index number (AQI) deteriorated more or less but managed to remain in the ‘poor’ category as it stood at 300 on Monday morning, marginally up from Sunday's 270-plus reading.Sunday, November 30, saw the 24-day streak of ‘very poor’ category air in Delhi ending as strong northwesterly winds brought small respite along with clearer skies for the city and adjoining areas like Uttar Pradesh's Noida, Ghaziabad as well as Haryana's Gurugram and Faridabad.Delhi AQI and weather today | Key points-Delhi AQI today: At around 8:05 am on Monday, Delhi's overall AQI stood at 300 - the ‘poor’ category - with 23 of the 38 monitoring stations listed on Central Pollution Control Board's Sameer app recording 'very poor' level air quality index. On Sunday, the city recorded AQI of 279 (poor), improving from the 305 (very poor) a day earlier. The CPCB classifies an AQI between 0 and 50 as 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 as 'severe'.-Worst AQI: The Nehru Nagar station monitoring station had the worst AQI - 354 - while the best was at the NSIT Dwarka station - 202, according to readings in Sameer app at 8:05 am on Monday. Along with Nehru Nagar, monitoring stations at Rohini (343), Bawana (339), RK Puram (338), Mundka (330), Punjabi Bagh (329), Anand Vihar (327), Wazirpur (325), Shadipur (324) and Jahangirpuri (321) made up the 10 with worst AQI. -Why were skies clearer on Sunday: Sunday's clearer skies were attributed to by experts to strong winds. “We had strong northwesterly winds blowing from the mountains towards the plains, which helped in dispersion of pollutants not just across Delhi but Punjab and Haryana too. AQI began to improve from Sunday night onwards,” an earlier HT report quoted Ashwary Tiwari, who runs the IndiaMetSky portal on X.-Wind picks up: According to CPCB data, the winds picked up from Saturday afternoon, with speed of 10–15 km/hr through the day and not witnessing night-time stagnation. Experts said this consistent wind flow helped disperse pollutants that had accumulated over the past three weeks.-Delhi temperature drops below 6 degrees C: Readings from Delhi's Safdarjung station on Monday showed minimum temperature at 5.7 degrees Celsius, 4.6 degrees below normal, as seen on IMD website. This becomes the lowest minimum temperature of the season and lowest November reading since at least 2022. Before this, Delhi recorded its lowest temperature in three years on Wednesday, November 26, with the minimum plunging to 8 degrees Celsius, three degrees below normal and the lowest November reading since 2022.