Rain, hail lash Ghaziabad; AQI improves

GHAZIABAD: The parts of city witnessed moderate rains and hail on Wednesday. Following downpour, Ghaziabad's AQI improved to ‘moderate’ from ‘poor’ a day before.
On Wednesday, the city witnessed rains at around 3.45pm. According to India Meteorological Department, more rainfall is expected in the NCR during first half of Thursday as well.
The residents in Indirapuram, Vaishali and in Dasna Masuri area were in for surprise when rains led to sudden change in weather.“I was in my balcony when it started to rain which soon intensified and within the minutes hail pellets of varying size started falling and which lasted for about ten minutes,” said Priyanka Mishra, a Vaishali resident.
Ashish Kumar of Supertech Apartment in Indirapuram said, “There was rain forecast and in the afternoon it started to rain but what we did not expected was hailstorm, winters are here and soon there will be drastic drop in temperature,” said Kumar.
Shahbaz Alam of Dasna village, which also witnessed rain and hailstorm, said, “Since afternoon, there was hint of rain as it was cloudy and there was also increase in wind speed and by 3.30pm it started raining,” said Alam.
Kuldeep Shrivastava, head, Regional Weather Forecasting Centre (RWFC), IMD said, “there is rain forecast on Thursday as well and we expect that in the first half of Thursday, the NCR will experience more rains under moderate category.” Shrivastava however ruled out hailstorm on Thursday but said the temperature in the area will remain between 20 to 21 degree Celsius.
The AQI on Wednesday was recorded at 143 which was in 'moderate' range and is expected to remain within poor and moderate range for the next few days.