NEW DELHI: The skies opened up over Delhi late Tuesday morning and many parts of the city received heavy showers till the evening, flooding roads and causing all-too-familiar traffic chaos on many stretches in the capital, reports Jasjeev Gandhiok.
While this was the second "heavy" rain spell over the city this month - Safdarjung logged 84.1mm from 8.30am to 5.30pm - August will still go into the met records with a rain deficit of 13% due to a statistical quirk. The department records rain only till 8.30am in the day's count.
Monsoon to end on a strong note in Sept
Tuesday’s showers will officially go into the September 1 account. Discounting the day’s rain after 8.30am, Delhi, compared with the long-term monthly average of 247.7mm of rainfall, got just 214.5mm in August this season. The India Meteorological Department classifies rainfall of over 64.4mm in 24 hours as heavy.
“The rainfall pattern has been erratic in August. Delhi received 138.8mm of rainfall in a single day but did not record much rainfall otherwise. Today’s was another heavy rainfall spell right at the end of the month, and it will only count for the September data,” said a Met official. “The monsoon trough has shifted back closer to Delhi-NCR and more rainfall is expected on Wednesday.”
While Safdarjung logged 84.1mm of rainfall between 8.30am and 5.30pm on Tuesday, the Lodhi Road station was Delhi’s wettest location, receiving 87.2mm in the same period. The Ridge, Palam, Ayanagar, Pitampura and Sports Complex stations all received ‘moderate’ rainfall.
IMD had issued an ‘orange’ alert for rainfall on Tuesday, meaning a forecast of moderate rainfall, with isolated places recording a heavy downpour. A similar orange alert is in place for Wednesday, with moderate rainfall forecast for the city and the possibility of some locations receiving heavy precipitation.
While Delhi received over 500mm of rainfall in July — 2.4 times the normal of 210.6mm — the prediction was for the precipitation to be close to the normal in August too. For September, the long-term average is 125.1mm, but Tuesday has already given it 84.1mm in just nine hours. In 2020, September had only logged 20.9mm rainfall.
“Rainfall activity is expected till Friday and this should put September in the surplus, meaning the monsoon will end strongly for Delhi,” said the Met official.
Despite the rain, Delhi’s air quality could not do better than the ‘satisfactory’ category, with an overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of 73 against a reading of 81 on Monday. The AQI is expected to drop in the next 24 hours, owing to a drenched atmosphere.
The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), a government forecasting body, said Delhi’s air on Wednesday is likely to prove the best in the past one month. “The SAFAR model predicts that AQI will improve significantly from Tuesday evening onwards and will be the best in the past one month after August 2. However, reduced winds with light rainfall from Wednesday onwards will once again increase the AQI level in the next two days after that,” predicted SAFAR.
