Rain leaves its mark on air, but pollution starts rising

New Delhi: Delhi's air quality has started deteriorating as the rain has puased. The city has seen five consecutive days of moderate air quality. The AQI was 121 on Tuesday.
The last time Delhi saw a longer spell of consecutive moderate days was before June 18, before the arrival of the monsoon that hit the city on June 29.Experts said the improvement seen during the monsoon was due to back-to-back shower spells that washed away dust and suspended particles.

Central Pollution Control Board's data shows the AQI was in the satisfactory category on Sept 11 at 94. It worsened to 108, in the moderate range, on Sept 12. The AQI was 109 on Sept 13, 108 on Sept 14, 112 on Sept 15, and was 121 on Sept 16. India Meteorological Department's data shows that Safdarjung, the city's base station, has not received rain since Sept 7.
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst of the think tank EnviroCatalysts, said: "As soon as the monsoon started retreating from parts of the country, the pollution levels began to rise. It is important to cut pollution concentration at the source so that it doesn't touch hazardous levels."

The Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi, a forecasting body under the Union ministry of earth sciences, has said that the city's AQI is likely to remain moderate on Wednesday. The readings may be satisfactory on Thursday and Friday.

The absence of rain has led to a rise in the mercury too. The maximum temperature on Tuesday was 36.3 degrees Celsius, three degrees above normal. The relative humidity oscillated between 48% and 89%.

Due to the high humidity, the heat index or feel-like temperature on Tuesday was higher than the maximum at 41.8 degrees Celsius at 2.30 pm. The minimum temperature was 24.2 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal.

IMD said rain is unlikely in the next seven days when the day temperature is expected to hover around 34-36 degrees Celsius.