Delhi is not done with rain just yet. Even as parts of the capital and its neighbouring towns recovered on Thursday from a fierce thunderstorm that sent temperatures crashing by up to 17 degrees Celsius, forecasters warned that a fresh western disturbance is set to influence northwest India from 2 May, likely bringing another round of light rainfall and gusty winds to Delhi between May 3 and 5, HT reported.
The forecast comes on the back of a dramatic afternoon storm on Thursday that battered large parts of Delhi-NCR with gusty winds, heavy rain and hail, providing sharp — if brief — relief from the season's punishing heat. Temperatures are likely to climb again from Friday, with the IMD forecasting highs of 39–41 degrees Celsius and a low of 23–25 degrees Celsius for the day, rising to 40–42 degrees Celsius on Saturday, according to the report. The approaching western disturbance, however, is expected to interrupt that heat build-up early next week.
Thursday's storm struck after 3 pm, triggering steep temperature drops across the region. At Safdarjung, the city's base weather station, the mercury fell from 40 degrees Celsius to 30 degrees Celsius within hours, HT reported. The steepest decline was recorded at Hindon, where temperatures plummeted by 17.1 degrees Celsius. Lodhi Road, Pragati Maidan and Ayanagar logged falls of 11 degrees Celsius, 10.8 degrees Celsius and 11.7 degrees Celsius respectively.
IMD scientist Krishna Mishra noted that the eastern and northeastern parts of Delhi-NCR — including Noida and Ghaziabad — bore the brunt of the weather, experiencing temperature falls of the order of 14–17 degrees Celsius owing to intense rain and hailstorm activity, the report quoted him as saying.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president at Skymet Weather, explained that an active western disturbance was driving Thursday's extreme weather — moving east-northeast and interacting with moisture incursion over the plains to produce intense thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, squally winds and isolated hail across Delhi-NCR, HT quoted him as saying. It is a similar mechanism that is expected to fuel the incoming spell from May 3.
Hail was reported from multiple locations across east Delhi on Thursday, including Krishna Nagar, Bhajanpura, Maujpur, Shahdara and stretches along the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, as per the report. Ghaziabad's Sahibabad and Noida's Sectors 11 and 57 were also affected, with large hailstones disrupting movement and causing minor structural damage in some areas.
BS Vohra, president of the East Delhi RWA Joint Front, confirmed the severity of the hail, describing the stones as strikingly large and saying residents were forced to dash indoors immediately, HT reported. A Noida resident of Sector 52, similarly was cited by HT as saying that the size of the hailstones surprised people and prompted them to rush inside.
The rain delivered a side benefit to Delhi's air quality as well. The city's Air Quality Index improved to 148 — in the "moderate" category — on Thursday, down from 183 a day earlier, according to the report. The Centre's Air Quality Early Warning System forecasts that AQI is likely to remain moderate until at least 3 May — a window that conveniently aligns with the next anticipated wet spell.