BENGALURU: In just a little over five hours on Wednesday, Bengaluru city recorded 9mm of rain up to 5.30pm, while HAL recorded 4mm rain and the gauge at Kempegowda International Airport reported trace (precipitation too little to be measured).Rainfall in January is rare, Met department officials said. While it did not rain in Bengaluru last January, the city did record 0.8mm rainfall on January 29, 2019.
There was no rain in January in 2018 also. On January 1, 2015, Bengaluru recorded 7.6 mm rain in 24 hours. The highest January rain in Bengaluru was 65.8 mm rainfall, recorded in January 16, 1908.
IMD Director in-charge C S Patil told TNIE that Tuesdays showers were caused by an easterly trough and that rains would continue up to January 10.Easterly winds are very strong this season and are moving from the Bay of Bengal towards Sri Lanka.
Other factors that have caused rain across large parts of the state include a disturbance over the Andhra Pradesh coast, and a trough from north Karnataka that is moving towards Gujarat. An alert has also been sounded for coastal Karnataka where the easterly and westerly winds are colliding, leading to thundershowers.