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Day temperature drops as rain hits city
Gurugram The city received intermittent light to moderate showers from late Tuesday to early Wednesday, taking the maximum temperature to 14.4 degrees Celsius, a
Gurugram The city received intermittent light to moderate showers from late Tuesday to early Wednesday, taking the maximum temperature to 14.4 degrees Celsius, a drip of around 4 degrees Celsius from the previous day, as per the India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.
The intensity of the rain reduced to a light drizzle during the day and cloudy skies prevailed through Wednesday.
The IMD’s manual weather observatory at Palam recorded 10mm rainfall between 8.30am and 5.30pm on Wednesday. The amount of rainfall received between 5.30pm on Tuesday and 8.30am on Wednesday was 5mm, according to the IMD’s data.
Heavy rain early Wednesday caused waterlogging in city’s arterial stretches, such as Palam Vihar Road, Passport Seva Kendra Road, Sheetla Mata Road, Sector 4/7 Chowk and Old Delhi-Gurgaon Road, according to the traffic police’s updates. Traffic congestion was reported on Wednesday morning near Atlas Chowk and Old Delhi Road, Sector 21, due to waterlogging, said officials.
“There was traffic snarl on the service road of Atlas Chowk was between 10.30am and 11.15am on Wednesday. On Old Delhi Road, traffic congestion was reported at 9am and it lasted for around 50 minutes. The police cleared it,” a traffic police official said.
A traffic official said, “The movement of vehicles tends to slow down after it rains as the roads get waterlogged. Our traffic officials were at the spot to facilitate traffic movement.”
Wednesday’s weather conditions were a result of a western disturbance, said IMD scientists. However, Thursday is likely to have a partly cloudy sky with moderate fog in the morning, as per the IMD’s prediction.
After being above the 10 degrees Celsius mark this week, the minimum temperature is predicted to fall to around 9 degrees Celsius on Thursday. The minimum temperature on Wednesday was 11 degrees Celsius, as recorded by the MeT department.
“The maximum temperature could increase by a degree or so and be around 16 degrees Celsius on Thursday and Friday before rising by another degree,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, senior scientist at the IMD.
However, another spell of western disturbance could bring light rain to the city on Monday, he said.
The city’s air quality was in the ‘moderate’ category of the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) air quality index (AQI), with a reading of 168, the first day that ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ air quality was not recorded since December 23, 2019.
Experts attributed the improvement in air quality to the rain and good wind speed (averaging around 22 kmph, as per the CPCB). Air quality on Thursday is expected to deteriorate marginally, in the ‘poor’ category due to meteorological factors, experts said.
