Even as the mercury continues to touch a new high in many districts of Telangana breaking the record of more than a decade and Nizamabad was the hottest place with around 45 degrees Celsius on Sunday, a sudden downpour and thunderstorm brought some relief to the people of Hyderabad and surrounding areas.
The weather in the State capital and the neighbouring Ranga Reddy district changed dramatically with a thunderstorm bringing welcome showers accompanied by lightening and gale winds.
Apart from many parts of the city, surrounding areas of Uppal, Kapra, Charalapally and Ghatkesar also received good amount of rains bringing down the temperature and giving much needed relief from scorching summer heat of last several days.
Some other places in Karimnagar, Warangal and Nalgonda district were also hit by the hail storm. 500 quintals of paddy in two procurement centers was damaged as hailstorm hit two villages of Sriciall mandal in Karimnagar district this afternoon.
But the other parts of Northern Telangana continued to reel under intense heat wave and the weather office warned that the same situation will prevail for another four to five days. The officials have also warned of hailstorm and thunder storms at some places in Telagana State over the next 48 hours.
According to the weather office in Hyderabad Ramagunda and Nizamabad were the hottest places on Sunday with temperature of 45 and 44.9 degrees Celsius followed by Adilabad at 44.6 Degrees Celsius. Medak recorded 44 and Nalgonda 43.2 Degrees Celisus. Earlier in the day Hyderabad also experienced scorching heat with a temperature of 42.4 degrees. Most of the places in all the ten districts recorded more than 40 degrees Celsius.
Mercury touched 45 degrees Celsius for the first time this year on Saturday when deadly heat wave claimed 50 lives on a single day while another 35 people died in neighboring Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 200 people have died in the heat wave this month in both the States.
Officials said that this intensity of heat was unusal for the month of April. “Normally Andhra Pradesh and Telangana record this kind of temperature only in the month of May. Summer heat has broken more than a decade old record”, a senior official at the Hyderabad Met office said.
In Nizamabad, where the intense heat wave wad forcing the people to remain in doors for most parts of the day, a Road Transport Corporation bus driver died in his bus due to the sun stroke.