GURUGRAM: The city’s air quality worsened on Friday, within 24 hours of showing a slight improvement on Thursday, with the air quality index (AQI) rising by over 45%. Pollution and fog are both likely to increase over the coming days as wind direction is set to change.Friday’s AQI stood at 235 (poor), up from Thursday’s 162 (moderate), while the 24-hour average of PM2.5 stood at 100 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³), which exceeded the permissible limit (60µg/m³). However, the city remained the least polluted in the Delhi-NCR region on Friday, with Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad recording AQI in the ‘Poor’ category, while Faridabad was the only NCR city with AQI in the ‘very poor’ category. Met officials said low wind speed has made the city air quality poor. They also said that under influence of a fresh western disturbance, wind direction would soon change from north-westerly to south-easterly.Currently, winds are blowing at 20-24 km/hr. They are expected to slow to a mere 5-10 km/hr over the next 2-3 days. There might be some rainfall in the northern states, but none is expected across NCR. Temperatures are also expected to rise briefly. On Friday, maximum temperature stood at 26°C, while the minimum dropped to 14°C. “The mercury will increase briefly till November 19, after which it will again fall. We’re not expecting any rains in the city, We’re also expecting wind speed to pick up from November 19,” a Met official said.

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