Our predictions came true as heavy rain of 132mm in Ahmedabad in the last 24hours flooded the solar park and led to major flooding, causing chaos in the city. Earlier, very heavy rain of 264 mm was recorded in Umarpada block of Surat district. “We were expecting rain to be heavy but did not expect it to be this heavy. It has been the heaviest in last some years”, says Mahesh Palwat, Head of Met team at Skymet Weather.
Rainfall will considerably reduce over Gujarat now and will only be light with one or two moderate spells. Rain could be below 10mm and skies will be partly cloudy to mainly cloudy in the state. Strong wind speed of up to 50kmph will also reduce significantly.
During the period of heavy rain, maximum temperatures in Gujarat which were maintaining in the mid-thirties fell by 3 to 6 degrees at many places. Temperature in Ahmedabad was 33⁰C on Wednesday which dropped to 26⁰C after the rains. Surat was 3 degrees below normal at 29⁰C and Bhuj recorded 31⁰C as opposed to 36⁰C.
“The monsoon trough of low was first at central India, where it gave 249mm of rain in Indore and then it moved to Gujarat causing the same scenario. This system is currently at Rajasthan but it may not give heavy rain in the state”, adds Palawat. Rain will mainly be light to moderate in south and east Rajasthan today and tomorrow it may occur with the same intensity only at east Rajasthan. On Sunday, the system may move further upwards and bring rainfall at north and northeast parts of Rajasthan.
Light rain was recorded in many parts of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Kota in the last 24 hours. Maximum temperature fell by couple of notches and settled at 34⁰C in Jaipur and 30⁰C in Udaipur. Bikaner which is still the hottest and driest in India at 42.8⁰C could come down to 39⁰C as the humid southwesterly winds from the Arabian Sea may start penetrating the region.
The trough of low will then move towards the foothills of Himalayas on the weekend and may bring moderate rain here, with heavy in some pockets of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Delhi may get light rain on Saturday and moderate rain on Sunday. Temperatures in Delhi will fall by 4 to 5 degree Celsius and settle at 32⁰C.
Photo by Deepak Kumar.
