Mumbai woke up to a chilly Monday morning as temperature dropped to 16.4 degree Celsius, the air quality, however, has started worsening once again. After a brief period of improvement last week, on Monday morning, the air quality once again deteriorated by registering an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 310.
According to a short forecast bulletin by System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the air quality of Mumbai is in the very poor category on Monday.
While the overall AQI of the city on Monday morning was 310. Navi Mumbai recorded the worst air quality among the lot by registering an AQI of 374, followed by Andheri with 340, Malad - 335, Mazgaon - 309 Chembur and Colaba with 300 were in very poor category. Meanwhile Bandra Kurla (BKC) and Borivali witnessed poor Air quality with AQI of 280 and 252 respectively.
"The air quality of Mumbai is in the poor to very poor category. Due to continuation of high pressure in western India, calm winds are prevailing in Mumbai and the surrounding regions, and in addition, continental pollution and dusty oceanic air is polluting the air. This condition is leading to poor AQI in Mumbai. With movement of high pressure system to the west, calm condition will be relaxed slightly which is going to improve the AQI to poor for Mumbai in the next 2 days," the bulletin issued by SAFAR stated.
The Santacruz observatory of the IMD recorded a minimum temperature of 16.6 degree Celsius and a maximum temperature of 31.3 degree celsius. Colaba recorded a minimum temperature of 18. 5 degree Celsius, which was at par with the normal temperature, while maximum temperature recorded in Colaba was 29.6 degree celsius. The IMD attributed this drop in temperature to the cold westerly winds.
In 2019, the lowest minimum temperature was recorded on January 19 at 13.4 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, the weather department said the minimum temperature that hovered around 17 t0 16 degrees Celsius throughout Sunday and Monday will further dip in the next two days across the state. According to the 24-hour forecast, the minimum temperature may drop to 15 degrees Celsius and to 14 degrees celsius in next 48 hours.
K S Hosalikar, deputy director-general (western), IMD said, "The trend of gradual drop in temperatures will continue for the next two days."
