Rain Alert! Thundershower & Hailstorm Activities in Delhi to Improve Air Quality

The overall air quality in the national capital remained in the ‘very poor’ category on Monday morning with no appreciable change. As per the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), Air Quality Index (AQI) was recorded at 331 on Monday morning. 

According to SAFAR, “The air quality is expected to improve a few notches as good wind speed would continue to disperse the prominent pollutants faster than the accumulation due to cold weather condition and fog. However, moderate foggy conditions are likely to prevail over Delhi-NCR region for the next two days which may not allow significant improvement in the air quality. The AQI is likely to remain in the ‘very poor’ range for the next three days with declining magnitude.” 

SAFAR earlier predicted that an active western disturbance is expected to cause fairly widespread moisture intrusion over the northern region of India including Delhi. If this western disturbance causes a sufficient amount of rain, the AQI would improve to ‘poor’ quickly.  

However, now clouding over the capital city has increased and as clouds has become dense, rain and thundershower activities will commence over Delhi and its adjoining region of Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad today. 

Hence, in the coming three to four days starting from today, light to moderate rain and thundershower activities are likely to affect the Delhi-NCR region. Along with this, hailstorm activity over isolated parts of the city cannot be ruled out. Due to the occurrence of mild rainfall, fog will not make appearance and air quality will also improve. 

On Monday morning, the prominent pollutants PM 2.5 (fine particulate matter in the air with a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometres) was in poor category and PM10 (fine particulate matter in the air with a diameter of fewer than 10 micrometres) was in the ‘very poor’ category at IGI, Terminal-3, as per news agency ANI. 

The overall PM2.5 level in Delhi was recorded at 279 in the ‘poor’ category while the PM10 level was recorded at 331 under ‘very poor’ category. 

However, as a result of decreased visibility due to fog in Delhi and the surrounding areas on Monday led to disruption in train services at New Delhi Railway Station. As many as 11 trains were delayed this morning due to fog, according to ANI. 10 trains were delayed for nearly two-three hours. All departures and arrivals from Delhi Airport are also likely to be hit due to the weather. 

In Surat, flight services were affected due to bad weather, prompting SpiceJet to request its customers to keep a check on their flight status. The airline posted on twitter, “Due to bad weather at Surat (STV), all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights might get affected. The passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status.”