Strong winds and dust storms towards the later half of the day brought down the temperature to 42.6 degree Celsius in the Capital on Monday. Delhiites can expect another day of respite from the heat wave on Tuesday as well with the weather department predicting thunderstorms and the temperature likely to settle at 44 degrees Celsius.
According to Met officials, on Tuesday, though the temperature is expected to be a bit higher than the previous day’s, yet dust storm or thunderstorm may occur in parts of the city. "The sky will be partly cloudy on May 28. There are chances of a dust storm or very light isolated thunder storms over Delhi on Tuesday in view of the fact that western disturbances still lies at far Kashmir hills. But, the maximum temperature may not reduce much as compared to that of Monday as the atmosphere is still dry and the Western Disturbance is very far from Delhi. The minimum temperature will be around 30 degree Celsius," said a senior Met official.
Officials in the weather department further said that the temperature, after the dust storm hit the city on Monday, drastically fell to 36.4 degree Celsius by 5:30 in the evening. "The dust storm that hit the city further pulled down the already warmer temperature by seven degrees in just a span of an hour. Most importantly, this is the biggest relief of temperature for any afternoon period between the time span of 4 to 8 pm compared to the earlier days since the heat wave began on May 18," informed a senior Met official.
While the maximum temperature was two degrees above normal, the minimum temperature which was 30.2 degrees Celsius was three notches above the normal temperature.
The weather condition continued to be hot and with humidity at 56 per cent. The dust storm occurred with a wind speed of 48 to 40 kilometres per hour, informed the official. He, however, added that it was a temporary respite following a western disturbance affecting Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.