Light rain broke a 16-day dry spell in the national Capital on Thursday with monsoon likely to make onset in the city on Sunday, officials in India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
IMD chief KJ Ramesh said, “We expect monsoon to come to Delhi in the next two-three days, around Sunday.”
Various parts of the city witnessed short spells of rain of varying intensity which led to a marginal dip in the mercury, but pushed the humidity level up to 85 per cent.
With the monsoon expected to reach the national Capital this weekend, rain is expected over the next two days thanks to moisture-laden winds from the Bay of Bengal, weather officials said.
The weather stations at Ayanagar, Palam and Jafarpur gauged rainfall at 17 mm, 5.8 mm and 5 mm. The Safdarjung Observatory, which provides official figures for the city, recorded 0.4 mm of precipitation, according to the IMD data.
The city recorded a high of 38.6 and a low of 31.2 degrees Celsius. Humidity oscillated between 52 and 85 per cent.
It’s the first spell of rain in Delhi since June 17, Mahesh Palwat of Skymet Weather, a private weather forecaster, said.
In June, the national Capital recorded just 11.4 mm of rainfall against the 30-year average of around 55 mm, Kuldeep Srivastava, senior scientist at IMD, said.
Rainfall in July will be marginally lower than the normal. Overall, it will be a normal monsoon. Normally, 60 cm of rain is recorded from June 1 to September 30 in Delhi, he said.
Gurgaon, Faridabad and Noida received good rainfall on Thursday. Conditions are favourable for monsoon to make an onset in the national capital in the next 48 hours, Palawat said.
Intermittent light rain is expected till July 10. Heavy showers are likely after that, he said.
Palawat said the onset of monsoon at a particular place in north India is determined by strong easterly winds, high humidity and good rainfall in neighbouring areas.