Rain falls, so does mercury: Temp to stay below 40°C in Delhi for next week

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast that there could be more rain and thundershower in the next five days at least.

Respite at last! Light rain on Sunday morning helped bring down the day temperature to less than 40°C in the national capital, after a span of 21 days. It also ended the Delhi’s dry spell that had been ongoing for more than a month.

Light rain on Sunday morning helped bring down the day temperature to less than 40°C in the national capital, after a span of 21 days. (Arvind Yadav/HT PHOTO)

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast that there could be more rain and thundershower in the next five days at least. The temperature is likely to remain below the 40 degree mark too. There are no chances of heat wave in the next week at least.

On Sunday, the maximum temperature at Safdarjung was recorded as 36.3°C, which was three degrees below normal. At Palam, the temperature was 37.8°C, which was two degrees below normal.

The last time Delhi had witnessed a day temperature below the 40 degree Celsius mark was on May 26 when it was recorded to be 39.3°C.

Thereafter, the mercury continued to rise; and on June 10, the temperature touched 45.6°C at Safdarjung and 48°C at Palam.

Till Sunday evening, while the Safdarjung observatory of the IMD received around 0.6mm rain, Palam recorded around 0.4mm rain. Delhi had last received rain on May 15. Before this, Delhi was the only state in India to have registered 100% rain deficiency.

“It was quite unusual because every year since 2011, Delhi had received some rain during the first two weeks of June. In 2017 Delhi encountered at least four days of rain in the first two weeks. It was the wettest June in 10 years,” said another IMD official.

The scorching summer heat and strong surface winds had even forced the dust pollution to shoot up. Safar, which is a pollution forecasting agency under the union ministry of earth sciences, said that the level of surface ozone had shot up to poor levels on June 7.

Ozone is not emitted directly into the air, but is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) chemically react in the presence of sunlight. It can trigger cough and cold and aggravate asthma, experts said.