Haze engulfs Mumbai as temperature dips to 33.3 degrees, air-quality suffers

A thick blanket of haze engulfed the city on Thursday morning as mercury levels dropped to a manageable 33 degrees Celsius, providing some much-needed relief to Mumbaikars.

Mumbai had been witnessing heatwave-like conditions since Sunday, with day time temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees Celsius – roughly seven degrees above normal.

The city finally got some respite on Wednesday evening, when the mercury level started dipping.

According to IMD, a maximum temperature of 33.3 and 31.7 degrees was recorded at its Santacruz and Colaba observatories respectively at 8:30 am today. The minimum temperatures, on the other hand, hovered around the 22-24 degree mark.

The day time temperatures are now just one degree higher than normal.

Private weather forecasting agency Skymet attributed the rise in mercury levels to anti-cyclone over the northeast Arabian Sea and adjoining South Pakistan, which caused northeasterly dry and hot winds to blow over North Konkan, Goa & Madhya Maharashtra.

Now that the anti-cyclone has moved westward, it has changed the wind direction from northeasterly to westerly/northwesterly. These winds are cooler in nature and have helped bring down the temperature.

While the fall in mercury level is a welcome change for the city, the increased humidity has affected the air quality.

The city woke up to a thick cloud of haze and smog as humidity levels rose to 77 percent (Santacruz) and 92 (Colaba) percent. Further, the Air Quality Index (AQI) fell to 205, which is considered ‘poor’.

According to System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) data, areas like Chembur and Bhandup recorded ‘moderate’ AQI levels, while BKC and Worli fell in the ‘poor’ category.

The worst air quality was recorded at Andheri and Navi Mumbai, where the AQI fell to ‘very poor’ category.