The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Waterlogging keeps civic bodies busy amid short, intense showers
SHORT AND intense spells of rain lashed parts of Delhi- NCR on Wednesday, leading to instances of waterlogging, traffic snarls, and falling of trees.
The city recorded a significant amount of rainfall as the Palam station logged 25.4mm while the Safdarjung base station observed 10.1mm rainfall between 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm.
While seven complaints of waterlogging were received at the control room of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi ( MCD), three were reported at the New Delhi Municipal Corporation ( NDMC) control room. Besides, two cases of trees falling were reported.
The areas that were affected by waterlogging included Keshavpuram Zone, Siddhartha Extension, DMS Colony- Hari Nagar, Uttam Nagar, Saraswati Marg- Karol Bagh, and Chittaranjan Park.
Krishna Mishra, a scientist with the India Meteorological Department ( IMD), said, “The shifting of the monsoon trough from the South to align to its normal position, extending from North Pakistan and along Ganganagar, Prayagraj in Southwest Uttar Pradesh till Kolkata, caused today’s ( Wednesday) rainfall in Delhi.”
Commenting on the rainfall on Tuesday, Mishra said, “The intense spells of rainfall caused in the capital yesterday were because of the monsoon trough extending its orientation from Southwest Rajasthan to Bay of Bengal.”
The Delhi Met office, in its weather alert as per Nowcast system, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, at 12.39 pm: “Moderate to heavy rainfall accompanied with moderate thunderstorm and lightning is very likely to occur at NCR during the next two hours.”
Accurate prediction of monsoon is not possible if only reliant on models, because global models developed for weather forecasting fail to accurately detect mesoscale convective systems or activity, especially in tropical areas, said Mishra. Therefore, the IMD also uses the Nowcast system that uses radar and satellite imagery, which gives forecasts for the next three hours.
Weather stations at Ridge, Lodhi Road, Delhi University, Jafarpur and Mayur Vihar logged 7.8 mm, 5mm, 4.5mm, 2mm and 4mm rainfall respectively as of 5.30pm.
The maximum temperature observed at the Safdarjung base station was a notch above normal with 36.4 degrees Celsius, for the first time in seven days, while the minimum temperature stayed close to normal at 27.5 degrees Celsius.
An NDMC official confirmed that three complaints of waterlogging were received at its Integrated Control and Command Centre as of 4.43pm. The official said the complaints were received from Lodhi Colony, KalibariMandir Marg, and Ansari Nagar West.
Scattered to fairly widespread light to moderate rainfall in Delhi is predicted till Saturday, according to an IMD press release.
A generally cloudy sky with light rain is predicted for Thursday.