Mumbai’s air quality dips, to go down further today
The city’s overall air quality was indexed at 283 on Saturday evening, down from 267 Friday .Both fall in the poor air category meaning people with heart or lung disease, older adults and children should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.
The air quality forecast for Sunday for all over Mumbai is 286. An air quality index (AQI) below 100 is good, between 100 and 200 moderate and up to 300 poor.
Four out of the nine locations monitored by SAFAR in Mumbai recorded AQI above 300, which is considered very poor. It means people with heart or lung diseases, older adults and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion; everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion, according to SAFAR. Borivli recorded an AQI of 183, better than all other locations. Dr Gufran Beig, project director, SAFAR, said it’s rare that temperatures are falling so fast at this time of the year. “The be low normal temperatures and relatively slow wind speeds are resulting in increasing the mass concentration of pollutants. However, calmer winds are not known to remain in Mumbai for long and air quality may be better than what it is today in the days to come,” said Beig. Meanwhile, minimum temperatures recorded in Mumbai stayed below normal. On Saturday morning, the minimum temperatures recorded by IMD’s Santacruz observatory was 17 degrees Celsius which was 4.5 degrees below normal.
The minimum temperature re corded by the Colaba observatory was 21.8 degrees Celsius, 1.5 degrees below normal.
The maximum temperatures were almost double the minimum temperatures. The maximum temperatures recorded by the Colaba observatory was 34.2 degree Celsius and by Santa Cruz observatory was 34.5 degree Celsius. The IMD has forecast that low minimum temperatures are likely to continue for the next 48 hours.
