A rainy start to weekend for Capital; more to come: IMD

A series of short, but intense, bursts of rain disrupted weekend plans of residents across the National Capital Region (NCR) on Saturday, foreing people to scramble for cover nearly throughout Saturday, even as the weather office predicted that the wet spell will continue at least till Monday.

- Jasjeev Gandhiok

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast light to moderate showers on Sunday, with isolated heavy rainfall in parts of the city.

Delhi initially had a yellow alert in place for Saturday, which was upgraded to an ‘orange’ alert at 3.42pm and further toa ‘red’ alert by 5.10pm, as bursts of rain were recorded across southeast, south, north, central and west Delhi, accompanied by winds of 30-40 km/hr. Safdarjung, Delhi's base station for weather, recorded 2.6mm in the 24 hours till 8.30am, adding another 24.8mm in the next nine hours, data till 5.30pm showed. Between 8.30am and 5.30pm, Palam had 16.5mm, Lodhi Road 27mm, Ridge 9.6mm, Pusa 13.5mm, Najafgarh 7.5mm and Rajghat 3.2mm, data showed.

With this spell, Delhi has now recorded 286.7 mm of rainfall this month, with the total expected to cross 300mm in August by Monday.

The normal monthly rainfall mark is 233.1mm, meaning the city has already logged surplus rains. The annual rainfall total, meanwhile, touched 850mm on Saturday, against the normal yearly mark of 774.4mm. August has already emerged as the wettest month, officials added.