New Delhi: The minimum temperature soared by over 4 degrees on Friday. The city’s base station, Safdarjung, recorded a minimum of 9 degrees Celsius, significantly higher than the 4.5 degrees Celsius a day earlier.
Meteorologists cited hyper-local wind activity as the reason for the sudden rise in temperature. The air quality of the city remained ‘poor’ but the strong winds did pull several areas out of the ‘very poor’ AQI range. On the AQI scale, Delhi recorded 270 at 10am, which improved to 253 by the late evening. The average AQI on Friday was 262.
Mahesh Palawat, vice-chairman for climate change and meteorology at Skymet, said: “There are local factors. The past few days were cold due to fresh snowfall (in the mountains of north India). Now, days after the last snowfall, the wind speed has increased. For the night temperature to drop, winds must be calm. Strong winds slow down cooling because of low ground cooling. We expect the winds to remain strong for a few more days. This will help improve the air quality, while the minimum temperature will not drop sharply.”
According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), the city saw winds reaching up to 16kmph during the afternoon, coming from the northwest direction. The maximum temperature on Friday was recorded at 22.8 degrees Celsius, 0.2 degrees below normal.
The weather department expects the maximum and minimum temperatures to hover around 23 and 7 degrees Celsius on Saturday.
According to the air quality early warning system, the AQI is likely to remain ‘poor’ till Sunday. “The air quality is likely to be in the ‘poor’ category from Dec 14-15. It is likely to be in the ‘very poor’ category on Dec 16.” The system has forecast that the next 6 days, the air quality is likely to be in the ‘very poor’ or ‘poor’ range.
