Noida: Smog hung over the city in the morning, but sunshine and light winds brought some relief. The air felt less suffocating than it had in the past few days, although the pollution levels remained high. The air quality in Noida improved from Monday’s 332 to 301 within 24 hours. The air quality in Ghaziabad and Greater Noida remained in the ‘poor’ category, with AQIs of 244 and 233, respectively. PM2.5 was the dominant pollutant across the three cities.Of the 19 monitoring stations spread across the three NCR cities, four stations in Noida recorded air quality in the ‘very poor’ category. Sector 62, with an AQI of 351, remained the worst, followed by Sector 110 with an AQI of 341, Sector 39 with an AQI of 324 and Sector 150 with an AQI of 321.Three air quality monitoring stations — two in Ghaziabad and one in Greater Noida — recorded ‘moderate’ AQI, and 12 other stations recorded ‘poor’ air quality in the range of 200-300. Indirapuram in Ghaziabad recorded the best air quality among the 19 stations, with an AQI of 144, followed by Govindpuram in the same city with an AQI of 171 and the Shiv Nadar University monitoring station in Greater Noida with an AQI of 173.According to IMD, the trough from northwest Uttar Pradesh to north coastal Andhra Pradesh across Chhattisgarh and Odisha at 3.1 km above mean sea level persisted through the day, and the upper-air cyclonic circulation over southeast Rajasthan and the neighbourhood at 0.9 km above mean sea level has become less marked. Delhi and NCR experienced winds from variable directions in the morning hours, with speeds ranging from 5-10 kmph, and later in the day, the wind blew from the east while maintaining the speed range. The light winds helped clear the atmosphere to some extent.Ghaziabad recorded a noticeable improvement as the AQI came down by 80 points from 324 to 244, while in Greater Noida it improved from 252 to 233 and in Noida it improved from 332 to 301.At 299, Delhi’s AQI remained at the higher end of the ‘poor’ category, but Gurgaon once again witnessed a day of ‘very poor’ air with an AQI of 345.
