NEW DELHI: Patchy rain, high humidity levels and soaring mercury has led to a string of punishing hot and humid days in the national capital. Even as Delhi received light rain on Tuesday afternoon, the humidity levels remained high making for a yet another uncomfortable day with the heat index (real feel) shooting up to around 50 degrees C during the day. The state weather department, however, said relief is in sight with moderate showers expected over the next two days.
On Tuesday, Safdarjung, Delhi’s base station, received 10.2 mm rain between 9 am and 8.30 pm. Aya Nagar weather station received 12.2 mm rain, Palam also received 10.2 mm rain during the same time while most other stations recieved traces.
According to the IMD, the maximum temperature was 37.7 degrees C, which is three notches above normal for this time of the year while minimum settled at 29.2 degrees C, which is two notches above season’s average.
R K Jenamani, senior IMD scientist, said that the discomfort being felt is high as humidity levels and temperature remain high. “There has been no good or widespread spell of rain since early July, which would lead to a drop in mercury and provide a cooling effect. When we see the air temperature, it does not account for relative humidity and hence how hot one actually feels is higher than what the air temperature reflects.
Unlike European countries, in tropical countries like India, we don’t have methodology developed to calculate the heat index and what some agencies do share is not correct because the method they use is wrong,” Jenamani said.
He said that on Monday the heat index (a measure of relative humidity and temperature) and the wet bulb temperature, another index to measure the discomfort felt in a region, went high with the mercury soaring to 38.2 degrees. On Tuesday also, these two parameters were high till mid-day, after which rain occurred in parts of the city, which brought the discomfort level slightly down.
Mahesh Palawat, vice-president, Skymet, a private weather forecaster, also said that the high discomfort level is due to patchy rains, which have added moisture in the atmosphere but in absence of any good system, widespread rainfall has not occurred in Delhi and the NCR since the monsoon arrived here on June 30.
He said that Delhi-NCR is likely to see a good spell of rain from July 22-26. “Overcast skies with gusty winds during this time is likely to bring the city much-awaited relief,” he said.