In Delhi’s wettest May ever, CM warns officials face action for waterlogging

With a thunderstorm battering the city in the early hours of Sunday, 25 May, and dumping 81.4 mm of rain on the city in just a few hours, Delhi recorded its wettest May since record-keeping began in 1901, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The month's cumulative rainfall has now touched 186.4 mm, surpassing the previous all-time record of 165 mm set in May 2008.

The storm, which struck around 2 a.m., brought gusty winds peaking at 82 kmph, leading to widespread waterlogging, uprooted trees and major disruptions at the airport.

Delhi's Sunday rainfall alone — classified as "heavy" by IMD standards — also made it the city's second-highest 24-hour May rainfall ever recorded, after the 119.3 mm logged on 20 May 2021. Temperatures nose-dived overnight, with the mercury plunging 10 degrees at Safdarjung — from 31 to 21 degrees Celsius — within 75 minutes.

The weather office said the unusually intense storm was the result of the interaction between moist southeasterly winds and dry westerlies, further intensified by three active weather systems: a western disturbance over north Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and two upper air cyclonic circulations — one over northwest Uttar Pradesh and north Haryana, and another over west Rajasthan.

The city had earlier seen 77 mm of rain on 2 May, according to the data.

Sunday's maximum temperature settled at a cool 31.6 degrees Celsius, nine notches below normal, while the minimum was 19.8 degrees Celsius C, seven degrees below the May average.

An orange alert was sounded for the national capital on Monday, 26 May, — meaning, residents should be alert and ready for potentially disruptive weather — with a rain and thunderstorms forecast. The IMD has forecast intermittent light rain and thunderstorms with winds up to 50 kmph to persist through the week.

Parts of Delhi received light showers early in the morning, with the minimum temperature dropping to 25.2 degrees Celsius, 1.4 degrees below the seasonal average, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The IMD predicted that the maximum temperature could rise to around 35 degrees Celsius, still low for the time of the season.

In the midst of this, Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta warned on Monday, 26 May, that officials will be taken to task if waterlogging is reported from areas they are responsible for.

She had said that last month that specific officials were made responsible for each waterlogging point and that action was taken against the officials for the submergence of Minto Bridge underpass in the recent rain.

"I want the officers deputed to monitor waterlogging points to do their work properly or they may be the next to face action," she told reporters.

Based on PTI inputs