NEW DELHI: Monsoon finally arrived in Delhi on Thursday, and with a bang! It started pouring from early morning, washing away all complaints of heat and humidity. Thursday saw the season’s heaviest rainfall so far, but also brought back the familiar sights of waterlogging and the agony of crawling traffic. Safdarjung, Delhi’s base weather station, received 116.6 mm rainfall between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm, bringing down the mercury to 29.4 degrees C. Among other weather stations, Lodhi Road received 107.6 mm rainfall, Palam received 31.8 mm, Ridge 65.2 mm, Ayanagar 51.9 mm, Delhi University 58.5 mm, Pusa 44.5 mm and Gurgaon received 12 mm rainfall.
Overcast skies kept the city under a dark shadow, as it continued to rain through the day. More showers are likely on Friday, weather officials said. The monsoon is likely to cover the entire country by the end of the first week of July, said senior IMD scientist R K Jenamani.
However, even with Thursday’s heavy showers, June ended with a rain deficit of 67%. Since 24-hour rainfall is considered for records, Thursday’s data will be excluded from the cumulative rainfall for the month. The total monthly rainfall received was 24.5 mm against around 74 mm, which is considered normal for this month. “The seasonal deficit will well be covered by the good spells of rain expected in July,” said Jenamani.
The rain and gusty winds during the day brought much-needed relief from the hot and severely humid weather conditions over the past four-five days. The extreme humidity caused by moisture-laden easterly winds across in Delhi-NCR made people sweaty.
On Thursday, the maximum temperature at Safdarjung dropped to 29.4 degree C — seven notches below ‘normal’ for this time of the year. This is a sharp drop from Wednesday’s 40.9 degrees C. Prior to this a spell of rain had brought the mercury below 40 degrees C. Heavy rainfall in isolated pockets of Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh is likely from June 30 till July 2.
