Noida: As wind picked up speed, air quality saw marginal improvement across NCR on Thursday, but there was no let-up in the smog blanket. In Noida, AQI was recorded at 283 (poor) on Thursday after slipping to 330 (very poor) a day ago. Greater Noida recorded an AQI of 238, significantly better than Wednesday’s 309, while air quality in Ghaziabad was 263, which was similar to Wednesday’s 257.Weather experts attributed the change to westerly winds blowing at 15-20 kmph across the region and a slight increase in temperature — the maximum temperature hovered around 30 degrees Celsius and the minimum was 17 degrees. A shift in wind speeds or daytime solar heating caused the rolling 24-hour average to drop much faster than standard winter trap models predict.A hub of corporate offices and commercial complexes, sector 62 in Noida remained in the ‘severe’ category for the third consecutive day with an AQI of 412, while two more monitoring stations — sectors 110 and 150 with a significant presence of industries and offices — remained in the ‘very poor’ category with AQIs above the 300 mark. Sector 1 recorded an AQI of 221 and sector 125 was at 273. In both areas, PM10 was the major pollutant.While Sector 39 saw an AQI of 283, Sector 116 saw the cleanest AQI of 185, in the ‘moderate’ category.In Greater Noida, Knowledge Park 3 and Shiv Nadar University monitoring stations recorded AQIs of 268 and 277, whereas Knowledge Park V was the cleanest with an AQI of 170 in the ‘moderate’ category. The UPPCB has added two more monitoring stations in the city, but they are yet to start recording data.In the eight monitoring stations in Ghaziabad, PM2.5 was the dominant pollutant. Commercial hub Indirapuram remained the worst with an AQI of 322. Six of the monitoring stations remained in the ‘poor’ category with an AQI below the 300 mark. Govindpuram’s AQI was 123 (moderate).
