Delhi's air quality likely to deteriorate marginally but remain in moderate category on June 23-24

New Delhi [India], June 22 (ANI): Delhi's air quality is likely to deteriorate marginally but remain in moderate to poor category on June 23-24, informed the Ministry of Earth Sciences on Tuesday.

According to the National Weather Forecasting Centre of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the air quality over Delhi-NCT is likely to remain in the satisfactory to a moderate category on June 22, while it is likely to deteriorate marginally but remains in the moderate category on June 23 and June 24.

PM10 will be the predominant pollutant owing to strong surface winds favourable for raising dust concentration locally and transport of dust from arid regions.

The predominant surface wind is likely to be coming from the Northwest/Southwest directions of Delhi with wind speed 10-15 kmph and partly cloudy sky on June 22. The predominant surface wind is likely to be coming from the Northwest directions of Delhi with wind speed 12-20 kmph and partly cloudy sky on June 23.

The predominant surface wind is likely to be coming from the West-Northwest directions of Delhi with wind speed 24-28 kmph, partly cloudy sky and strong surface winds (speed 20-30 kmph) during the day on June 24.

The predicted maximum mixing depth is likely to be approximately 3800 m on June 22, 4400 m on June 23 and 4300 m on June 24 over Delhi. The maximum ventilation index is likely to be approximately 27000 m2/s on June 22, 2021, 29500 m2/s on June 23, 2021, and 39000 m2/s on June 24, 2021. The ventilation index lower than 6000 m2/s with an average wind speed less than 10 kmph is unfavourable or dispersion of pollutants.

As per System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), Delhi reported an air quality index of 73 thereby being in the 'satisfactory' category. As per the government agencies, an AQI with the range of 0-50 is regarded as 'good', 51-100 is 'satisfactory', 101-200 is 'moderate', 201-300 is 'poor', 301-400 is 'very poor' and 401-500 is deemed as 'severe'. (ANI)