One of the hottest cities of India, Bikaner, once again witnessed balmy weather in the last 24 hours taking everyone by surprise. This time it wasn’t soaring temperatures but immense heavy rain that lashed the city in span of just 3 hours, dipping the minimums by 8 degrees.
It started to rain in the middle of the night on Tuesday and the power went off, as if the electricity board was waiting for an opportunity. 74 mm of abnormal heavy rain occurred in Bikaner city from 2:30 am to 5:30 am making the morning unusually nippy. The minimum recorded 20.6⁰C (eight degrees below normal), as opposed to 25.3⁰C on Monday.
Rain came as a huge relief to the people of Bikaner who had been suffering even at night due to soaring minimums, between 31⁰C and 33⁰C. The day temperature which had been recording around 44⁰C till last week, has already dropped by a couple of notches in the last two days due to continuous dust storms/thunderstorms in the region.
Bikaner has therefore often made it to our list of top ten hottest cities in India this summer as the maximums here consistently settled around 47⁰C, also recording 47.6⁰C on 6th June.
Bikaner has had only one instance of rain before this, on Sunday 22nd June, when 5 mm of rain was witnessed. Barring these two days entire June has been completely dry. This was again because there was no strong system which could have given rain to the city.
Till now, the total rainfall in Bikaner is about 79 mm which is the third highest monthly total rainfall in June in the last ten years. Prior to this Bikaner had observed 79.4 mm of rain in 2010 and 84.4 mm in 2008. However, 74 mm of rain (Tuesday) in a single day in the city is the highest ever recorded in last ten years. 58.2 mm of rain on 8th June 2010 is the second highest rainfall in a decade in a span of 24 hours.
“Though there have been earlier instances, it is rare for Bikaner to witness such heavy rain in a single day. Rain occurred due to a circulation persisting near Central Pakistan and adjoining northern Rajasthan. This cyclonic circulation is a semi-permanent feature which gets accentuated when a Western Disturbance is moving across, which is currently being experienced”, explains AVM (Retd) G.P Sharma.
According to the latest weather update by Skymet Meteorology Division in India, temperatures may continue to observe changes as rain is expected to continue in the state.
