New Delhi, Oct 16 (PTI) Gusty winds accompanied by rain lashed parts of the national capital on Monday, making the weather pleasant.

Windy conditions today brought the mercury down to 30.5 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season's average.

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Rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning was recorded in parts of Noida, Indirapuram, south Delhi and east Delhi.

Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather, in a post of X, said, "Heavy thunder and rain clouds moving across Delhi and NCR. From west to east. Intense rain and hail storms are possible. Take care."

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In another post, he noted that light rain and cool winds have dropped the maximum temperature of Delhi by 5 degrees.

"From 36.5 to 30.5 in the last 24 hours. Minimum may also fall," he said in a post.

There was a slight nip in the air on Monday. The air quality index (AQI) at 9 am stood at 195 but deteriorated to a poor category as the 24-hour AQI at 4 pm was recorded at 207. However, by 7 pm, the AQI showed marginal improvement to settle in the moderate category as the AQI read 200.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered "good", 51-100 "satisfactory", 101-200 "moderate", 201-300 "poor", 301-400 "very poor" and 401-500 "severe". An AQI above 500 falls in the "severe plus" category.

The air quality is likely to be in the moderate category on Tuesday, and poor on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the IMD.

The weather department has forecast a generally cloudy sky for Tuesday with the possibility of light rain or thundershowers.

The maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to be around 31 and 20 degrees Celsius, respectively.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)