Heavy downpour brings traffic to grinding halt

NEW DELHI: Heavy rains lashed several parts of the national Capital on Monday, causing waterlogging and traffic snarls on major intersections across the city.

Throughout the downpour, Delhi Traffic Police regularly kept updating commuters about the prevailing traffic conditions on its official Twitter handle.

Roads such as Fatehpuri T-point on SP Mukherjee Marg, Rajdhani Park, Mehrauli-Badarpur T-point and Pramod Mahajan Marg were waterlogged.

Breakdown of a truck on the Nangloi flyover further caused congestion on the road from Nangloi towards Peeragarhi.

In the morning, the city witnessed light rain as the mercury dipped to 24 degrees Celsius, according to the Meteorological Cepartment. The weatherman had predicted cloudy skies with moderate rainfall and scattered thundershowers.

Since 8.30 am on Sunday, the Palam observatory recorded a good 24.5 mm of rains, while the Safdarjung observatory witnessed 16.3 mm of rainfall.

Other parts of Delhi also recorded good showers, including Ayanagar with 23 mm, Delhi University with 15 mm and Ridge with 14.3 mm.

Meanwhile, the maximum temperatures settled in a comfortable range, with Safdarjung recording a maximum of 31.2 degrees and Palam 30.4 degrees Celsius – both three to four degrees below the normal levels.

Generally, the month of September is a good one for Delhi, both in terms of temperatures as well as rainfall activities.

This September, in fact, could be termed as one of the best Septembers for the Capital in the recent past.

Usually, rainfall reduces to a major an extent in September, which happens to be a withdrawal month.

However, this year, rainfall has been on the higher side, with the city to recording a whopping 225 mm of rains against its monthly average of 129.8 mm of rainfall.

This year, Delhi has recorded the second highest monthly rains, the highest ever being 332 mm in September 2010.

However, later this month, rains will reduce significantly, and only isolated pockets will see light rains during morning hours while clear skies will be seen in the latter part of the day.

Moreover, temperatures will also start to increase thereafter.