Noida: The air quality remained in the ‘very poor’ category for the second day on Wednesday. Visibility remained poor during the morning hours, dropping as low as 300m in some areas of the city.Noida logged an AQI of 329 against 382 the day before, while Greater Noida’s AQI shifted to 320 from 372. In Ghaziabad, the AQI was recorded at 347, compared to 393 on Tuesday. In delhi, too, the AQI remained ‘very poor’ at 330 against 378 a day earlier.According to data on the Central Pollution Control Board portal, all four air monitoring stations in the city recorded ‘very poor’ air quality on Wednesday. Sector 1 recorded the worst AQI at 347, followed by Sector 116 (AQI 340), Sector 125 (AQI 318) and Sector 62 (AQI 310). In Greater Noida, Knowledge Park V (AQI 346) recorded ‘very poor’ air, while Knowledge Park III (AQI 295) was in the ‘poor’ category.In Ghaziabad, Loni recorded the worst AQI at 400 in the upper end of the ‘very poor’ category, followed by Indirapuram (AQI 325) and Vasundhara (AQI 364). Sanjay Nagar recorded ‘poor’ AQI at 300.As per the early warning system, the AQI is likely to be ‘very poor’ on Thursday before improving to ‘poor’. An active western disturbance approaching the region may lead to rain and a thunderstorm on Friday.Meanwhile, the minimum temperature settled at 7.7 degrees Celsius while, the maximum temperature was 24.2 degrees Celsius. Shallow and moderate fog is expected on Thursday. The IMD also issued a yellow alert for rain and gusty winds on Friday, forecasting a sharp rise in minimum temperatures, followed by a drop thereafter.According to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the predominant surface wind on Thursday, the city will record partly cloudy sky with shallow to moderate fog during morning hours. The predominant surface wind is likely to be from the west direction with wind speed associated with calm wind reaching up to 5 kmph during the morning hours. The wind speed will increase to 8 kmph in the afternoon and then gradually increase to 15 kmph during evening and night.
