Capital covers rain deficiency after heavy spell
nNEW DELHI: Delhi recorded “heavy” category rain in many parts of the city on Wednesday morning, with weather officials saying most stations covered the rain deficiency on Wednesday, which will be reflected in their records on Thursday.
Delhi’s rain deficiency since June 1 was 43% on Tuesday, which reduced to 29% on Wednesday. Safdarjung recorded 67.3 mm, Palam 81.2 mm and Lodhi Road recorded 71.9 mm rain on Wednesday.
Rainfall of 64.5 to 124.4 mm in a day is considered ‘heavy” by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The heavy spell of rain is due to a combination of factors, meteorologists said.
“The monsoon trough (line of low pressure) is passing south of Delhi. It is passing along Bikaner, Palwal, Badaun, Bahraich, Muzaffarpur and north-eastern states. Because Palwal is just south of Delhi, it is bringing a lot of rain here. There is also a trough (area of low pressure) in the westerlies. Moist south-westerly winds are blowing from the Arabian Sea. These are contributing to rain,” said Kuldeep Shrivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre.
The monsoon trough is likely to shift to the east Thursday onwards, leading to gradual reduction in the rains. The western part of monsoon trough is now lying to the south of its normal position and eastern part runs close to the foothills of Himalayas. In addition, the convergence of moist southerly-southwesterly winds from Bay of Bengal over north-east and adjoining east India is likely to continue for 24 hours till Thursday.
According to IMD’S Wednesday bulletin, rain intensity and distribution over northwest India was likely to reduce significantly from Thursday but widespread and heavy rain is likely over central, east, northeast India and Maharashtra during the next three days.