Palam sees decade’s heaviest rain, Najafgarh gets even more

NEW DELHI: The decade’s heaviest spell of rain hit Palam in south Delhi on Tuesday. More than 100mm rain was recorded in the past 24 hours at Palam.

The highest rainfall on Tuesday was, however, recorded at Najafgarh where the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) rain-gauge registered 148mm rain. Compared to this, while Palam received 101mm rain, the observatory at Safdarjung, which is taken to be a representative of Delhi’s weather, received 49.6mm rain.

IMD scientists, however, said the intensity of rain is likely to decrease from Wednesday as the systems that triggered heavy rains in some parts of Delhi are weakening.

“This is the heaviest rain that Palam has received on a single day in the month of August. The last time Palam received such a heavy spell of rain was on August 2, 2007. It received 138.2mm of rain,” said a senior IMD official. The heaviest spell that Palam has ever received in the month of August was in 1963 when it registered more than 183mm of rain.

Safdarjung area has, however, registered a heavier spell of rain earlier this season. On July 13, Safdarjung received 52.4mm rain.

“The rain was triggered by two systems that converged over Delhi and NCR. While on one hand a cyclonic circulation had developed over Delhi and south Haryana, the monsoon trough, which triggers rain wherever it shifts, was also located close to Delhi,” said a senior IMD official.

Easterly winds were gushing in, as a low pressure had developed over Bay of Bengal. These winds brought in loads of mois- ture paving way for the rains, IMD officials said.

“But the cyclonic circulation has already started to weaken. With this the intensity of rains will also decrease from Wednesday even though intermittent light showers or drizzle is expected over the next two to three days,” said the official.

The rainfall intensity started decreasing from Tuesday morning itself. Even though most parts of Delhi received heavy rains overnight, there were hardly any rains during the later part of the day.

Between June 1 and August 28, Delhi usually receives around 511 mm rain. Till date, this year the city has received 504.6mm of rain, officials said.

There is a deficiency of one per cent.

Till Sunday, Delhi was suffering from around six per cent rain deficiency.

”MCG will rejuvenate ponds across the city and a budget of Rs20 crore has been set aside for the purpose. Work will commence post monsoon on these projects.”

Yashpal Yadav, MCG commissioner, in last month’s

House meeting

administrator of HSVP

Initially, 250 checks dams were to be constructed on the Ghata lake, but the project was revised, with the number of check dams being reduced to just five, due to perceived high cost.

The revised version, expected to cost Rs2.15 crore, is also in limbo, with the state government yet to release funds.

“The plans for building check dams in yet to materialise in any form.” Officials of civic agencies in Gurugram decided to tap rainwater harvesting, to not only store excess rainwater, but also rejuvenate groundwater.

The revised version, expected to cost Rs2.15 crore, is also in limbo, with the state government yet to release funds.

“190 of the 350 rainwater harvesting pits in the city are yet to be cleaned.”