Heavy rains lash Delhi-NCR, parts of north India

Heavy rainfall lashed parts of Delhi/NCR on Wednesday morning with many areas in the national capital reporting incidents of water-logging. States in North India are expected to receive ‘heavy to moderate’ rainfall in isolated locations whereas northeast Indian states will experience heavy rainfall, Indian Meteorological Department said on Wednesday (July 22).

The Indian Meteorological Centre said northwest and extreme north Delhi are likely to experience light to moderate rain/thundershowers during the day. Adjoining area of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are also likely to experience Light to moderate rain. Inundated low-lying areas and key traffic intersections in Delhi were heavily affected.

Residents shared pictures and videos of rainwater gushing into their houses and vehicles wading through waterlogged areas.

Reports said that 10 trees were uprooted and the temperature dropped down to 28 degrees celsius due to the heavy downpour in the national capital.  The Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative figures for the city, recorded 24.8 mm rainfall on Tuesday. At least four people died on Sunday as heavy rains lashed the city, inundating low-lying areas and bringing traffic to a standstill on important road stretches.

The convergence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal and southwesterly winds from the Arabian Sea is likely to continue over northwest India for another two-three days, weather experts said.

The monsoon though is also running through the region. These two factors together led to moderate to heavy rains in Delhi-NCR, they said.

Earlier, the India Meteorological Department had predicted widespread rainfall with “isolated heavy to very heavy rain” in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Similarly, in its Wednesday morning weather bulletin, the MeT department predicted widespread rainfall activity with isolated heavy to very heavy falls very likely over Bihar, Jharkhand, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura during next 3-4 days.

The rainfall intensity and distribution are very likely to decrease significantly Thursday onwards, the IMD had said.

Due to the prevailing flood situation in Bihar and Assam, National Disaster Response Force has positioned 122 teams in Bihar and 12 teams in Assam. The death toll due to Assam floods rose to 87 on Tuesday out of which 26 have died due to flood induced landslides.