Noida: Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad saw significant improvement in air quality on Sunday, with the overall air quality settling in the ‘poor’ category. IMD attributed the improvement to very light rainfall and an active western disturbance over the last 24 hours.Noida’s AQI rose by 63 points from Saturday and was recorded to be 265 while Ghaziabad’s ambient air recovered by 90 points to log an AQI of 243. Greater Noida’s air quality improved by almost 100 points from Saturday’s 324 and settled at 225.Of the 21 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) in these cities, only two, the commercial hub in Noida’s Sector 62 and Dasna Dehat in Ghaziabad, recorded an AQI in the ‘very poor’ category — 332 and 302, respectively. Two monitoring stations – Ghodi Bachheda in Greater Noida and Govindpuram in Ghaziabad – recorded an AQI of 162 and 108 in the ‘moderate’ category, while the remaining 17 monitoring stations recorded ‘poor’ air.According to the IMD bulletin, the western disturbance, a cyclonic circulation over north Pakistan, led to overcast conditions in the NCR region. The night temperatures in Noida and Ghaziabad were recorded at 18.1 and 18.4 degrees Celsius, while the day temperatures remained at 29.6 and 30.4 degrees Celsius, respectively. Noida recorded 0.5 mm of rainfall during the past 24 hours and a wind speed ranging from 10-15 kmph, blowing from the southwest in the morning and from the west during the afternoon.In Noida, barring the Sector 62 monitoring station that recorded ‘very poor’ air, six of seven monitoring stations recorded ‘poor’ quality air, with the worst being Sector 110 with an AQI of 285 and the best being Sector 1 and Sector 125 with an AQI of 236.In Greater Noida, Knowledge Park V had the poorest air quality in the city with an AQI of 267. Knowledge Park III’s AQI was 246, Gaur Yamuna City 231 and Shiv Nadar University 217 – all in the ‘poor’ category.In Ghaziabad, of the nine CAAQMS, Dasna Dehat was the worst with an AQI of 302, followed by New Tehsil Loni with an AQI of 294, then Loni with 280, Vasundhara with 258, Wave City with 255, Ved Vihar Loni with 239, Indrapuram with 234 and Sanjay Nagar with 219. All were in the ‘poor’ category.
