JOIN USDelhiites witnessed a rainy weekend with the meteorological department announcing the arrival of monsoon in the national capital on Sunday, two weeks ahead of the predicted date.
The monsoon arrived as expected in Kerala on June 1 and sped up towards northern India.
The director of Indian Meteorological Department confirmed that the monsoon has covered the entire country which usually used to take place around July 15.
“Friday rains have covered two-thirds of the landmass. The country will receive normal and fairly distributed rain in July and August. Rainfall is expected to be at 101 per cent of long-term average in July and 96 per cent in August,” said a Met department official.
“For the country as a whole, monsoon has been 43 per cent excess till June 15 since its onset over Kerala on June 1,” the official said. The official added that more rains and thunderstorms are expected to continue.
Rain brought down the temperature to a maximum of 37.2 and a minimum of 23.7 degrees Celsius respectively.
But its sudden arrival in Delhi also led to waterlogging and traffic snarls in areas like Laxmi Nagar, ITO and Kashmere Gate among others.
“I was stuck in a long traffic jam near Select Citywalk mall, Saket. Roads on both sides of the stretch are narrow and the mall attracts huge crowd. Rains further slow down traffic in that area,” said Rohit Vaidya, a student. It is a welcome relief from the soaring temperature and people stepped out of their homes to enjoy the first monsoon shower.
“The rains really made my weekend. The constant heat and humidity was taking a toll on me,” said Avantika, a working professional.
While the earliest onset of monsoon in last 30 years in the capital was recorded in 2008 (June 15), the most delayed arrival occurred in 1987 (July 26). Last year the monsoon was delayed by eight days. It had reached the city ahead of the schedule in 2011 (June 26), but arrived late in 2010 (July 5).