Morning shower brings relief, triggers jams, more rain likely
RESPITE Day temp dropped to 31.4, three degrees below normal; mercury to rise again from Sunday
NEWDELHI: An expected shower hit Delhi on Monday morning taking Delhiites by surprise. Even though it was a welcome relief from the rising mercury levels, the rain triggered traffic snarls as some roads in the city were waterlogged.
Officials from the regional weather forecasting centre (RWFC) in New Delhi have forecasted that there could be intermittent rain and thunderstorms over the next two days because of an approaching western disturbance.
“Monday’s shower was an unexpected one. A western disturbance had hit Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir. It was supposed to affect some parts of Haryana and Punjab on Monday and trigger rain in Delhi from Tuesday night and Wednesday. But an extension of the western disturbance reached Haryana, Punjab and Delhi on Monday morning triggering some rain,” said a senior official of the RWFC.
The Safdarjung observatory of the RWFC received around 2.2 mm of rain. The short spell of rain was, however, enough to bring down the day temperature by a few notches. While on Sunday the maximum temperature was hovering three degrees above normal and was recorded to be 36.3 degrees Celsius, on Monday the day temperature dropped to 31.4 degrees, which was three degrees below normal. The minimum temperature stood at 20 degrees Celsius, which is normal during this time of the year.
According to the Delhi Traffic Police, there was waterlogging at various places including Bhairon Enclave, Barwala Chowk, sections between Khanpur and Saket and Munirka, among others. Vehicles moved at a slow pace resulting in traffic snarls.
“Both the day and night temperature could go down further, by another degree or two as more rains and thunderstorms are expected to hit Delhi over Tuesday and Wednesday,” said the official.
Even though western disturbances are known to trigger more rain during the winter over northwest India, they usually trigger thunderstorm and dust storm during March and April. In some cases they trigger rain.
“But this time, conditions are favourable for rain as the easterly winds are also blowing and they are bringing in lots of moisture with them. The combined effect of western disturbance and easterly winds will trigger rain in Delhi,” said a senior official of the MET department.
The relief, however, would be
CCCCCCtemporary. The mercury could reach 36° Celsius once again by Sunday from around 30 degrees on Wednesday after the western disturbance’s effect withers.
A dust storm, with wind speed equivalent to that of a ‘severe cyclonic storm’ lashed Delhi on Friday afternoon, followed by a thunderstorm and rain. The wind speed of the dust storm reached 98km per hour around 5.50 pm on Friday disrupting flight schedules, Metro services and power supply.
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