Thursday rains take September showers to highest in 77 years
New Delhi: As Thursday's incessant showers choked Delhi's roads once again with traffic crawling at a snail's pace, the most-delayed monsoon season in 19 years, broke several records, including that of recording the highest September rainfall in the last 77 years, in addition to recording the highest rainfall in a monsoon season since 1964.
Delhi's September rainfall has breached the 400 mm mark. At 403 mm till Thursday afternoon, it is the maximum rainfall recorded in the month since 417.3 mm in September 1944. To put things into perspective, Delhi had received 404 mm rainfall in the entire 2019 monsoon period.
The September rainfall this year has been in marked contrast to last year, when the city got a meagre 20.9 mm precipitation in the month against a normal of 129.8 mm.
Delhi recorded more than 100 mm of rainfall on two consecutive days at the start of the month — 112.1 mm on September 1 and 117.7 mm on September 2. On Saturday (September 11), it recorded 94.7 mm precipitation.
However, the IMD has predicted more rain this unusually extreme monsoon season, which will result in the figures going further up. Experts say that it is on course to become the second-wettest monsoon ever in Delhi by the time it withdraws.
Normally, Delhi records 653.6 mm of rainfall during the monsoon season. Last year, the capital gauged 648.9 mm of precipitation.
According to the IMD, the Safdarjung Observatory, which is considered the official marker for the city, has received 1159.4 mm of rainfall this season till Thursday afternoon. It had gauged 1,155.6 mm of rainfall in 1975 and 1190.9mm in 1964. The all-time record is 1,420.3 mm rainfall in 1933.
And even as the IMD had issued an orange alert for Thursday, they have predicted light rain for today.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president, Skymet Weather, a private forecasting agency, said: On and off rains will continue till September 23-24 due to the expected late withdrawal of monsoon.
What has marked the unusual weather pattern this season is shorter spells of more intense rains concentrated on very few days - compared to previous years.
Delhi has also witnessed seven heavy rain events (64.5 mm to 115.5mm) this monsoon season so far, the highest ever, and these spells account for around 60 per cent of the rainfall recorded in the city. Normally, Delhi records just one or two such events during the entire season, said senior IMD scientist R K Jenamani.
Meanwhile, the rains on Thursday led to several areas being waterlogged and traffic snarls at various locations.
According to the Public Works Department (PWD), areas that witnessed waterlogging included Pul Prahladpur underpass, Mehrauli-Badarpur road, Anand Parbat, Zakhira underpass, Nangloi, Mundka, Uttam Nagar, Rohtak Road, Sangam Vihar, Dabri, Sitapuri, Krishna Nagar, Madhu Vihar, Chhattarpur, Badli, and Kirari.
The traffic police had to shut Pul Prahladpur underpass on Mehrauli-Badarpur Road in south Delhi due to waterlogging.
PWD officials said the ground staff was dealing with the waterlogging complaints. "Very few waterlogging-related complaints have been received today (Thursday) so far and they were dealt with on priority basis," a senior PWD official said.
