Mumbai gasps as overall AQI drops to 300

The city recorded an overall AQI of 283 (poor) on Wednesday morning. File pic

Mumbai's air quality continued to remain unsafe on Thursday, deteriorating from the ‘poor' to ‘very poor' category. System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) has predicted the Air Quality Index (AQI) will remain in the ‘poor' category for a few more days. The city recorded an overall AQI of 283 (poor) on Wednesday morning. The following day, Mumbai's overall air quality deteriorated to 300.

AQI from 0 to 100 is considered good, 100 to 200 moderate, 200 to 300 poor, 300 to 400 very poor and 400 to 500 severe. The values recorded by five of SAFAR's nine AQI monitoring stations in Mumbai were over 300 on Thursday. The stations at Chembur and Mazagaon topped the list with an AQI of 332. Followed by Colaba, Andheri and Malad with 317, 308 and 300 respectively. The air quality at Bhandup, Worli, Bandra Kurla Complex and Borivli recorded AQI below 200 (moderate). Meanwhile, Navi Mumbai fared worst, with an AQI of 334.

Also Read: Air quality in Mumbai improves after a week

On Thursday, the Indian Meteorological Department's (IMD) Santacruz observatory recorded a minimum temperature of 18.4 degrees Celsius while the Colaba observatory recorded a minimum temperature of 21 degrees Celsius. The IMD has forecast that the city would have a somewhat warmer New Year's Eve as temperatures are set to rise. Rajesh Kapadia from Vagaries of the Weather, a popular private weather blog, said, "With the western disturbance over the Himalayas set to move away eastward from Friday, December 30, cool northerlies are likely. This means the weather is likely to get cooler. Friday will be a warm day, but a cool breeze is likely from the evening. Saturday, December 31, and Sunday, January 1, will see a cool breeze through the day, with a maximum temperature around 29-30 degrees Celsius."

AQI in some areas

>> Navi Mumbai - 334
>> Colaba - 317
>> Malad - 300
>> Mazgaon - 332
>> Andheri - 308
>> Chembur - 332