BENGALURU: In just one hour, Bengaluru City recorded a heavy rainfall coupled with thunder showers and hailstorms. The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) city observatory recorded an average of 80mm of rainfall across Bengaluru and gusty wind at the speed of 75kmph.
The HAL Airport observatory recorded 24.7mm rainfall till 5.30pm, while the Kempegowda International Airport recorded “trace rainfall” (upto 0.1mm).
While the rain brought relief from the sweltering summer heat – dropping the mercury levels by 10 degrees Celsius – it caught many people by surprise. Citizens were seen running to take cover from the hailstorm.
Earlier in the day, the IMD had issued a yellow alert, but as the day progressed, the alert was revised to orange, forecasting heavy rain with gusty winds, hailstorms and thunder showers. The alert was issued for Bengaluru Urban and Rural, Chikkaballapura and Kolar.
N Puviarasan, the director in-charge of IMD-Bengaluru, said Wednesday’s was the third and heaviest hailstorm in the city recently. Some parts of Bengaluru experienced hailstorms in the second week of March and in the first week of April.
Puviarasan advised caution, as Bengaluru and its surrounding areas, along with a few parts of south interior Karnataka, including Tumkuru, Hassan and Chikkaballapura, will experience thunder showers coupled with hailstorms for the next two days. After that, the maximum temperature will rise by 1–2 degrees Celsius, he said.
Officials in Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said it is difficult to predict the exact locations of heavy rainfall and hailstorms. While the forecast was issued for moderate rainfall and winds of 40-50kmph, the velocity of winds in central Bengaluru was double. This caught the state government officials off-guard.