RAIN TO BRING DOWN MERCURY OVER NEXT ONE WEEK: MET DEPT

NEW DELHI: Intermittent spells of rain, thundershower and dust storms expected to hit Delhi over the next one week will help to bring down the day temperature by at least five degrees, meteorological officials said.

While the day temperature on Wednesday had shot up to 39 degrees Celsius, a partly cloudy sky helped to bring down the mercury to 37.6 degrees on Thursday.

“We are expecting two spells of rain and thundershowers over the next one week. While one spell of light rain is expected on Friday, some more rain is expected on Tuesday and Wednesday. This could bring down the mercury to around 34 degrees by Wednesday,” said a senior official of the regional weather forecasting centre in New Delhi.

A few spells of dust storms are also expected to hit Delhi later this week.

The minimum temperature, which stood at 23.2 degrees Celsius on Thursday, is however expected to remain in the same range. There won’t be any drastic change in the minimum temperature as the cloudy sky will not allow the heat to radiate at night.

Met officials said an approaching western disturbance will trigger these activities. Such activities are common during this time of the year. The western disturbance are storms from the west, help cyclonic circulations to form over north western states which in turn trigger the rain.

“Rain and thundershower during this time help to keep the rising mercury in check. The day temperature has been rising since March as there were hardly any such WDS in the winter season this year,” said the official.