Mumbaikars woke up on Tuesday, only to be left mesmerized by the beautiful and clear blue sky that soon became one of the most talked-about subjects on social media, which by noon was flooded with a picturesque skyline of the city. Such blue skies, which are very common sights across the US, UK and Europe, even left many people wondering about the phenomenon.

While the blue stood out almost throughout the day, Tuesday also happened to be one of the cleanest air days in 2019 for Mumbai, with the System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) recording Air Quality Index (AQI) of 28, which falls in 'Good' Category. According to air quality experts, this too was a key reason for the clear blue skies being so evident.

Rajesh Kapadia, a private weather forecaster who also runs the popular weather blog 'Vagaries of Weather' said that last three days the city experienced absolutely azure blue skies with clean air.

"A clean atmosphere and a sky without the usual high level 'Cirrus' clouds made the 'space' almost visible. Visibility was almost 35-40 km. With a high percentage of humidity in the air, blue is scattered more than other colours because it travels as shorter smaller waves," he informed stating that the absence of any intermediary clouds and dust-free atmosphere gave rise to a clear azure blue sky.

According to Kapadia once we have more dust particles clinging to the vapour in the air the visibility reduces and this phenomenon was experienced in the outer townships also.

Meanwhile, #blueskies was trending on twitter. "Skies in Bombay today look like God has applied a saturated filter on it. Surreal," tweeted Kartik Sharma. Emma Davis, a student of Xavier's College who took several photographs and selfies near CSMT station and BMC headquarters said that she and her several friends were amazed by the colour of the sky.

"We only noticed the blue sky after it was trending on twitter and immediately decided to capture some of the iconic structures of Mumbai with the sky in the background and got some beautiful footages as there was cloud movement too," she said.

Clean and Blue