**On Friday, April 3, 2026**, a sudden and major change was seen in the weather in Delhi-NCR. A strong **dust storm** spread across the area, covering the national capital and surrounding areas with a thick layer of dense brown fog. Visibility was significantly reduced across the city; Even famous places like India Gate were barely visible in the viral video shared by ANI. The strong winds blowing on the ground raised the dust lying on the ground, which affected the traffic and people started having difficulty in breathing.

The dust storm was caused by an **active Western Disturbance** — a weather system that originates in the Mediterranean Sea and moves eastward through Pakistan and northern India. According to the IMD report, two active western disturbances were affecting north-western India this week, whose maximum activity was on April 3-4. These systems brought cold and moist air, which collided with a mass of hot and dry air over the Indian plains (where temperatures reached 36.8°C on 2 April), causing instability in the atmosphere. This resulted in strong winds blowing at speeds of **40–60 km/h**, which lifted large amounts of fine mineral dust; This dust mainly came from **Thar Desert** and surrounding dry areas of Rajasthan.

Even after the wind speed reduced, **mineral dust particles** floating in the air remained in the lower atmosphere, due to which fog remained for a long time. Unlike typical urban smog from vehicles or factories, this was mostly natural dust; However, due to this, the **Air Quality Index (AQI)** reached the “poor” category (in some areas it was around 200-218). Meteorologists said recent rising temperatures had caused the ground to become drier and warmer, making it easier for dust to rise into the air.

Due to this incident the sky became cloudy; IMD has issued a forecast of **light rain, thunderstorm with lightning, lightning and strong winds** on Friday late evening and Saturday. This sudden change in weather brought some relief from the scorching heat that had been prevailing earlier, but it also exposed the volatile and unpredictable nature of the pre-monsoon season.

Experts believe that these increasingly extreme weather changes — such as spring arriving earlier, western disturbances becoming more frequent and more intense, and dust storms becoming more intense — are directly linked to **climate change** and the broader impacts of global warming; These effects are further increasing the instability in the atmosphere over northern India.