Delhi and its suburbs were seen covered with smog, decreasing visibility significantly on Monday morning. However, the air quality was marginally better, moving into ‘moderate’ category from ‘very poor’ on Sunday after rains in the national capital.

“Rains on Saturday increased moisture content in the air that led to ‘dense fog’ in parts of the city”, Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the IMD’s regional forecasting centre, told PTI .

The minimum temperature on the other hand dropped to 8.4 degrees Celsius on Monday due to strong winds, reports PTI

The maximum temperature however, is expected to settle around 22 degrees Celsius, according to India Meteorological Department.  

Area around Akshardham and Delhi-Meerut Expressway could be seen shrouded with dense smog reducing the visibility to nearly zero, reports ANI.

India
Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts that dense fog will continue to cover
the city for the next three days.

IMD tweeted on Saturday that Dense to very dense fog will be covering the isolated pockets over north Uttar Pradesh during next 5 days.

According to the estimates updated by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) PM2.5 remains the lead pollutant instead of PM10 as a characteristic of wintertime on Sunday.

While the winter season in India has just set its foot, Delhites complained of prickling throats and watery eyes owing to the heavy acrid haze in the region.

The city’s air quality index (AQI) was 169 at 10 am on Monday while 24-hour average AQI was 305 on Sunday and 356 on Saturday.

As per the index, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.