Why Delhi Turned Into A Sudden Dust Bowl
New Delhi: A thick layer of haze blanketed Delhi and neighbouring regions in the National Capital Region, causing poor visibility for nearly 11 hours from Wednesday night to Thursday morning.
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At Indira Gandhi International Airport, visibility levels deteriorated within 90 minutes on Wednesday night from 4,500 metres at 10pm to 1,200 metres at 11.30pm. Met officials explained that the visibility was affected by strong dust-laden winds from western Rajasthan.
Not surprisingly, the dust caused the city's air quality to fall to the 'poor' category with an Air Quality Index of 292 at 4pm on Thursday when the Central Pollution Control Board released its pollution bulletin.
By 7pm, the AQI worsened to fall in the 'very poor' category at 305. A day earlier at 4pm, AQI was 135 in the 'moderate' category and was forecast to stay within the same range on Thursday.
According to the India Meteorological Department, the visibility at Safdarjung, the city's base weather station, fell due to dust with the lowest reading of 1,500m at 8.30am on Thursday.
RK Jenamani, senior scientist, IMD, said sudden winds hit Palam a speed of 30-40 kmph and though the winds slowed down to 3-7 kmph after this, the visibility remained poor at 1,200-1,500 metres at both Safdarjung and Palam because of the presence of dust in the air.
An IMD statement explained that there was a high north-south pressure gradient over northwest India, which caused strong dust-raising surface winds of 30-40 kmph over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and north Rajasthan from the night of May 14 to the morning of May 15. "Under the influence of these strong winds, dust was advected from west Rajasthan to Delhi NCR across north Rajasthan, south Punjab and south Haryana, leading to a reduction in visibility with IGI Airport reporting the lowest visibility of 1,200 metres intermittently during the period," the statement said.
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It added that IMD Jaipur predicted a dust storm over Rajasthan for May 14, while IMD Delhi forecast thundery development accompanied by strong wind speed of 15-25 kmph, gusting up to 35 kmph.
Visibility improved during the day. "The dust gradually moved eastwards and Palam reported a visibility of 4,000m at 1 pm," said Krishna Mishra, IMD scientist.
Abhishek Kar, senior programme lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), said, "Dust storms are common before the onset of monsoon in north India.
This is a natural source of air pollution, so we cannot avoid elevated pollution levels. We only need to protect ourselves from exposure."
He added, "The authorities should leverage the available forecasting information on the Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) and the weather bulletins of the India Meteorological Department and provide timely guidance to citizens before such episodes to help them reduce their exposure by wearing masks."
The maximum temperature on Thursday was 40.6 degrees Celsius, one above normal and slightly higher than Wednesday's 40.4 degrees. IMD predicted chances of very light rain in the city on Friday evening till Saturday morning, with thunderstorms and gusts reaching up to 50kmph. The mercury is likely to be 40-42 degrees Celsius on Friday and 39-41 degrees Celsius on Saturday.
Despite the AQI falling in the 'very poor' category on Thursday night, the Commission for Air Quality Management decided not to invoke Stage I of the Graded Response Action Plan because it felt that the AQI level would fall from its high point.
Explaining this, a CAQM statement said, "The sudden and sharp deterioration in AQI to long-range transport of dust caused by substantial wind speeds is purely episodic in nature.
Further, the forecast by IMD/IITM also predicts the overall AQI of Delhi to fall back to the 'moderate' category in the coming days. However, the PM2.5/PM10 concentrations started to decline significantly after 8am on Thursday, and this trend is expected to continue further with no adverse meteorological factors and subsiding of the dust storm."
The pollution management panel will review the situation on Friday.
There was a political exchange of words over the haze on Thursday, with AAP claiming that AQI had crossed 500 in many areas of Delhi-NCR due to "dust and poisonous air". AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal posted on X: "Air pollution was never this bad during the AAP regime at this time of the year." Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva countered that citing the effect of the dust storm as proof of deteriorating pollution situation in May was evidence of AAP's deceitful and dishonest politics.
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