Orange alert issued after morning showers across Delhi-NCR on Independence Day

Delhi on August 14 surpassed both its monthly average and annual rainfall totals — the fastest it has done so in four years

New Delhi: An ‘orange’ alert for moderate rain until 2pm was issued for Delhi by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday.

Morning showers were reported from across the national Capital on the morning of Independence Day. (ANI)

Morning showers were reported from across the national Capital on the morning of Independence Day, a day after Delhi surpassed both its monthly average and annual rainfall totals — the fastest it has done so in four years.

In the 24 hours till 8:30 am on Friday, Delhi logged 80.4 mm of rainfall at Safdarjung, its base station. This included a brief drizzle of 1 mm between 2:30 am and 5:30 am. The IMD issued a yellow alert for light rain at around 10 am on Friday, updating it to an orange alert at 11.21 am.

“Thunderstorm/lightning with moderate rain is likely in the entire city. This is likely for the next three hours,” the update issued by the IMD said, which has also forecast a spell of light rain in the city at night.

A wet weekend is also on the cards, with spells of light rain expected on both Saturday and Sunday.

August has now received 255.8 mm of rain — exceeding the monthly normal mark of 233.1 mm. So far, the yearly rainfall total stands at 819.1 mm, well beyond the average annual rainfall of 774.4 mm that Delhi typically receives. This is also the fastest Delhi has crossed this annual mark since 2021, when it happened on August 1.

After a fairly dry start to the year — with only 10.5 mm of rainfall recorded in the first four months — Delhi has since received over 800 mm of rain since May. The city has also recorded excess rainfall every month since then.

May was the wettest ever on record, with 186.4 mm of rainfall — over six times the normal average of 30.7 mm. In June, Delhi recorded 107.1 mm, an excess of 45% over the long-period average (LPA) of 74.1 mm. In July, the city received 259.3 mm of rainfall, which was 24% more than the LPA of 209.7 mm.

Meanwhile, Delhi’s air quality continued to improve and touched 72 (satisfactory) at 11 am. It was 90 (satisfactory) at 4 pm on Thursday.