After Delhi recorded the season’s highest minimum temperature at 30.2 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, hailstorms, rain, and thunderstorms brought a huge respite to the city in the evening. However, the Capital experienced strong winds gusting up to nearly 80 kmph, prompting the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to sound a red alert. A sharp drop in temperatures was recorded in many parts of the city amid the pre-monsoon showers and storms. Among all the monitoring stations, Palam observatory recorded the maximum drop in temperature at 14 degrees Celsius. Between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm, the weather station saw the temperature drop from 37 degrees to 23 degrees Celsius. Lodhi Road, which was among the places lashed by hailstorms, saw the temperature drop by 10.7 degrees Celsius (see box). The temperature drop ranged between 8 degrees to 14 degrees at the monitoring stations, as per the IMD data. Meanwhile, the Safdarjung observatory, which is representative of the Capital, recorded wind speed at 79 kmph. Moderate rainfall was observed in many areas (see box). Safdarjung logged 12.1 mm of rain as of 8.30 pm. A cyclonic circulation in the neighbouring state of Haryana was cited as the cause of the storm on Wednesday evening. Moisture-carrying winds from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal fed into the system, said the weather office. A cloud mass that moved towards south-southeastwards away from Delhi over Gurgaon, Noida, and Faridabad led to intense thunderstorm activity in the region, as per the IMD officials. The sudden change in weather came after Delhi grappled with intense heat stress this week as “feel-like” temperatures or heat index values soared, even as no heatwave was declared. The heat index soared to 50.1 degrees Celsius on Wednesday afternoon while the actual temperature was recorded at 39.8 degrees Celsius at 2:30 pm. The day’s high was registered at 40.7 degrees Celsius. The city’s power demand also surged amid the sultry conditions on Wednesday, reaching a peak of 7,748 megawatts (MW), as per data from the State Load Despatch Centre. Unlike previous years, no heatwave days have been registered so far in May. The IMD defines a heatwave when the maximum temperature reaches at least 40 degrees Celsius in the plains amid a departure of 4.5 to 6.4 degrees from normal temperature for two days in a row in at least two weather stations. Till Tuesday, the city had received 92.7 mm of rain so far this month against the season's normal of 16.8 mm. The IMD has forecast a partly cloudy sky up to May 27. Light rain has been forecast for Friday and Saturday.
