Rains lash Delhi, bring relief from sultry weather

Rains lashed the national capital on Monday afternoon bringing much needed respite from the muggy weather conditions that had been prevailing over the last few days.

However, the downpour caused waterlogging at some places in the city leading to traffic snarls. The Delhi Traffic Police took to twitter to inform and alert commuters about the congestion and plan their journeys accordingly.

''Traffic is affected on New Rohtak Road in both carriageways due to waterlogging at Anand Parbat T-Point. Kindly avoid the stretch,'' it said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the traffic police informed that the traffic was heavy at Najafgarh Firni road due to waterlogging and urged them to avoid the stretch.

Delhiites woke up to a humid Monday morning and the relative humidity at 8.30 am was 75 per cent.

However, the sky became overcast in the afternoon and rains descended from the dark clouds.

The monsoon embraced Delhi in an impressive manner on June 30 but rains had repeatedly given the capital a miss since then.

The Safdarjung Observatory, Delhi's primary weather station, had recorded just 2.6 mm of rainfall in the last 10 days.

It had gauged 144.3 mm of rainfall against a normal of 126.7 mm since June 1, when the monsoon season starts. Of this, 117.2 mm came in just 24 hours ending at 8:30 am on July 1.

While just 2 mm of rainfall occurred in the next three days (July 1-July 3), the Met office on July 4 issued a yellow alert for July 5 and an orange alert for July 6, which was later shifted to July 7.

Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), of Skymet Weather had on Sunday said that Delhi would not get any rain on Monday and Tuesday.

The minimum temperature on Monday morning was recorded at 27.1 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year. The maximum temperature is likely to settle at 35 degrees Celsius.

Delhi's air quality was recorded in the ''satisfactory'' category as the air quality index (AQI) read 83 at 4 pm.

An AQI between zero and 50 is considered ''good'', 51 and 100 ''satisfactory'', 101 and 200 ''moderate'', 201 and 300 ''poor'', 301 and 400 ''very poor'', and 401 and 500 ''severe''.