MUMBAI: The city’s air quality index (AQI) which was in the ‘poor’ category at 269 on Wednesday dipped to 65 on Thursday, which is slotted in the ‘satisfactory’ category. Experts attributed this sharp drop to rain in the city which washed away the pollution.
An AQI of 100 to 199 is considered ‘moderate’, while 50 to 99 is considered ‘satisfactory’ and below 50 is considered ‘good’. AQI in excess of 200 is considered ‘poor’, above 300 ‘very poor’, above 400 ‘severe’ and above 500 is considered ‘severe+’.
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The poor air quality in the city led to a layer of smog over Mumbai due to vehicular, industrial, garbage and construction activities, was hanging in air for a week due to high humidity, low wind speed and lower temperature deteriorating air quality average Mumbaikars breathe.
Thursday was yet another day of rain as the city and adjoining areas like Navi Mumbai and Thane recorded significant rain activity. In the 24- hours ending 8.30am on Thursday, the IMD Colaba observatory recorded 4.6 mm of rain and the Santacruz observatory recorded 1.8 mm. The IMD has forecast light rain and thundershowers for city to continue till the weekend.
High minimum temperatures continued to stay as the Colaba and Santacruz observatories recorded minimum temperature of 25 and 25.2 degrees Celsius. Relative humidity were also on the higher side as Colaba and Santacruz observatories recorded minimum temperatures of 92% & 86% respectively.
( With Inputs from Chittaranjan Tembhekar)
