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13.2mm rain/ 38.3°C falls to 25°C, dust storm in Delhi: 2018

From The Times of India 3 May 2018

2018 Dust storm, sudden rain bring relief from heat

The capital saw a sudden dust storm followed by heavy rain that brought the mercury down by several notches.

The Safdarjung observatory, considered as the base for weather in the capital, received 13.2mm of rainfall between 5.30pm and 8.30 pm, while several other parts of the capital reported intense showers. Met officials said the rain was caused due to a cyclonic circulation forming over Haryana, which also resulted in the dust storm.

Met officials say the dust storm hit the capital around 4.30 pm, with Safdarjung recording a maximum speed of 59km/hr at 4.45 pm. A drizzle was reported around parts of the capital around 5.30 pm and the intensity increased by 7pm, during which the temperature fell to around 25 degrees, officials said. Operations were also affected at the IGI airport during the time and 15 flights were diverted.

Delhi had also received light rain on Sunday night due to favourable local conditions like high temperature and moisture. The humidity levels on Wednesday, meanwhile, were between 38-66%, met official said.

Earlier in the day, Delhi had recorded a maximum temperature of 38.3 degrees Celsius , while the minimum was 27 degrees Celsius—two notches above normal. The regional met has forecast cloudy skies on Thursday and the maximum likely to be around 36 degrees Celsius. A drizzle may occur in some parts.

Superstorm Rajasthan> Jharkhand, Telangana kills 129/ 2018

From The Times of India 4 May 2018

Superstorms across India kill 129, shatter homes and lives

Major Damage In UP, Raj; 46 Dead In Agra

Severe thunderstorms lashed many parts of the country on [the night of 2May 2018], killing at least 129 people in the last 24 hours and leaving a trail of destruction, with houses flattened, trees uprooted and electricity poles in disarray. The maximum devastation occurred in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the storms claimed 112 lives.

Uttar Pradesh reported 73 deaths, of which 46 were in Agra district alone. As many as 39 people died in Rajasthan, followed by seven in Telangana, four in Uttarakhand and two each in Jharkhand and Punjab.

The fury of unusually strong winds and heavy rains lasted for up to three hours in many places.

“Concrete houses came down like packs of cards one after the other. Trees, streetlights and whatever stood taller than a few feet were flattened by the winds. We took out victims from debris of houses and ferried them to hospitals on motorcycles,” Narendra Sharma, the SHO of Kheragarh police station in Agra district, told TOI after spending the night in rescue ops.

With 24 deaths, Kheragarh tehsil in Agra near UP Rajasthan border bore the maximum brunt of the storm in the district.

Deaths were reported from other parts of the state too. These included three each in Bijnor and Kanpur Dehat, two each in Saharanpur, Hamirpur, Mirzapur and Kanpur city; and one each in Bareilly, Pilibhit, Chitrakoot, Rae Bareli, Unnao, Mathura, Amroha, Banda, Sitapur, Sambhal, Etawah, Allahabad and Rampur. Nearly 90 people were injured in the state. The UP government has announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for the families of the deceased.

In Rajasthan, home minister Gulab Chand Kataria put the toll at 33 on Thursday, but unofficial sources said it had climbed to 39 by evening. Over 200 people have been injured in the storm which affected Bharatpur, Dholpur and Alwar districts.

After a horrifying night, Thursday morning brought in a host of woes as people woke up to disruption in water and power supply. As many as 12,700 electricity polls were uprooted and 1,523 transformers damaged in the three districts. More than 50,000 trees were destroyed.

The Rajasthan government rushed ministers to the three districts on Thursday while chief minister Vasundhara Raje is scheduled to visit the affected areas of Bharatpur on Friday. “Seventeen persons have died in Bharatpur, nine in Alwar and five in Dholpur district due to the dust storm,” Kataria said.

In Uttarakhand, casualties were reported from Almora, Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar districts.

In Telangana, heavy rains triggered by a cyclonic circulation killed seven people across the state. Strong winds plunged many areas in Hyderabad into darkness. Deaths were reported from Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda and Warangal districts.

In Punjab, two people were killed in Patiala city when the boundary wall of an underconstruction house collapsed on them. The victims died on the spot within minutes.

In Jharkhand, two women were killed in Sahibganj district when they were struck by lightning.

Why the storm was so intense

From The Times of India 4 May 2018

‘Perfect conditions’ gave deadly edge to storms: Met

More Intense Than IMD Had Predicted

Amit.Bhattacharya@timesgroup.com

Multiple factors lined up perfectly to cause the widespread thunderstorms and dust storms that claimed more than 110 lives across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand on Wednesday, Met officials said. At several places, the storms were more intense than predicted.

While squalls and dust storms are a common April-May phenomenon in north India as a result of high heat, what gave Wednesday’s storms more destructive power was their association with a western disturbance (WD), Met officials said.

“The thunderstorms coincided with a passing WD which provided moisture and unstable conditions, leading to storms across a wide area,” said K G Ramesh, director general of India Meteorological Department. The department had issued alerts for “isolated heavy thunderstorms” in the region with wind speeds of 40-50kmph. But winds reportedly reached higher speeds at several places.

“This can happen due to local gustiness within the zone of precipitation. These are accentuated by land features which enable winds to reach higher speeds due to tunnelling effect. Generally, the winds were within the range we had forecast” Ramesh said.

“Four weather conditions need to come together for thunder squalls to take place. One, there should be adequate heating of the land; two, there must be moisture in the air; three, the atmosphere should be unstable and, four, there must be a triggering mechanism,” said M Mohapatra, DGM, IMD.

All these conditions were met on Wednesday, Mohapatra said. “Surface temperatures were high and moist easterly winds were blowing up to Himachal Pradesh. The atmosphere was unstable and a cyclonic circulation over Haryana and its neighbourhood provided the trigger for the storms,” he said.

2018 storms were the most lethal since 2013

Amit Bhattacharya, (With Arvind Chahan in Agra), May 2 storms were most lethal in 6 yrs: IMD data, May 8, 2018: The Times of India

2013-2018, April- May storms with the highest death toll
From: Amit Bhattacharya, (With Arvind Chahan in Agra), May 2 storms were most lethal in 6 yrs: IMD data, May 8, 2018: The Times of India

Winds Hit 126kmph In Agra

The severe thunderstorms that hit north India and some other regions last Wednesday (May 2) unleashed the most devastation by any single-day storm event in the country in the past six years, for which data was compiled by the India Meteorological Department.

TOI had reported 129 deaths in the storms in north India, Jharkhand and Telangana on May 2. That’s nearly double the toll from the previous worst thunderstorm event since 2013, in which 65 people died in Bihar on April 21, 2015.

The data was compiled by IMD’s climate monitoring section, which relies on media reports on deaths from these weather events.

That the May 2 storms were a particularly destructive extreme weather event is also indicated by wind speed figures from the IAF’s Kheria airbase near Agra. These show that at 20.45pm that night winds touched 68 knots

(125.93 kmph) — speeds that prevail during a Category 2 cyclone. “The wind speed of close to 126kmph lasted for 5-10 seconds. The steady wind speed during the storm was recorded at 58 knots

(107.41kmph),” said a Wing Commander-level officer.

“All conditions necessary for storms were present on May 2, and more. Significantly, strong easterly winds brought moisture into north India which amply fed the storms, giving these a destructive edge,” said M Mohapatra, DGM, IMD.

IMD’s data on thunderstorms reveals that these weather events are underrated killers. These storms are usually localised events and hence do not make major news. IMD’s data shows that as many as 388 people died in thunderstorms in 2013. While the casualty count has been slightly lower in subsequent years, 2018 could see another spike since more than 170 lives have been lost on just two stormy days this year — May 2 and April 11.

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Kedar: 3” snowfall/ Keylong minus 0.3°C; Gangotri: avalanche/ 2018

Late snowfall halts Kedarnath yatra |The Times of India

Rough weather struck north India on Tuesday, as forecast by the Met department, bringing dust storms and rain at many places in the plains and rare late-season snowfall in the higher reaches of the Himalayas that left at least 2,500 pilgrims stranded near the Kedarnath shrine.

The Kedarnath yatra was halted on Tuesday morning following 3 inches of snowfall in the Kedar valley. Among those stuck along the 16km trek route to the Himalayan shrine were former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat and Kedarnath MLA Manoj Rawat. According to the district emergency operation centre, over 2,200 pilgrims were halted at Sonprayag, 200 at Lincholi, 350 at Gaurikund and 60 at Bhimbali.

“Due to bad weather in Kedarnath, most devotees have been asked to stay in Sonprayag and wait for the pilgrimage to resume. They are being accommodated in hotels and guesthouses,” he said. Gangotri and Yamnotri in Uttarkashi district received up to six inches of snowfall on Tuesday, with temple priests at both shrines claiming that this was the first time in eight years that snowfall had occurred at this time of the year. But unlike Kedarnath, snowfall did not disrupt the yatra in Gangotri and Yamnotri.

State Met department director Bikram Singh said snowfall in May was unusual and a “rare phenomenon”.

In Himachal Pradesh, snow, hailstorms and rain lashed many parts, with reports of damage to crops, blocked roads and landslides in some areas. Devastating hailstorms in Shimla district damaged apple crop and a thick white sheet of hailstones was seen across the city. At -0.3°C, Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district, was the coldest inhabited place in the state. The Met department in Delhi said thunderstorms were observed at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, among other places in the rest of the country.

Porter buried alive, 40 trekkers stuck as avalanche hits Gangotri National Park

34.7°C max/ light rain/ 64 km/hr dust storm/ 2018, Delhi

Why capital missed its date with storm | The Times of India

The capital saw strong winds on Monday night as a dust storm lashed late with the speed touching a maximum of 64 km/hr around 11pm. While Delhi was prepared for something similar on Tuesday, it received a dust storm of a much lower intensity, with light rain recorded in parts of the national capital region, while winds blew at 35 km/hr on Tuesday night. Met officials said while they had forecast a dust storm of speed touching close to 50 km/hr — a majority of the thunderstorm activity took place in the early hours of Tuesday itself, resulting in no activity in the afternoon.

Six diversions were also reported on Monday night as the strong winds affected operations at the IGI airport, also causing delays. However, the intensity was much lower on Tuesday night.

“Most parts ofnorthern India were hit by the dust stor m and thunderstor m on Monday night itself and the intensity peaked at 11.03pm when the wind speed touched 64/km hr. These squall conditions also took place overnight and this is why there was no activity in the morning or afternoon as we had earlier forecast,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, scientist at the regional Met office.

“Parts of Noida, Ghaziabad and north Delhi received light rain on Tuesday night and wind speed was close to 35 km/hr as another dust storm struck the capital, but this was lower in intensity and this activity is normal for May,” said Srivastava.

On Monday, a number of agencies had geared up with a disaster management helpline activated, while government bodies issued advisories on what precautions could be taken. The Delhi Metro had also stated they would stop trains if wind speed exceeded 90 km/hr on Tuesday.

The maximum temperature on Tuesday was recorded at 34.7 degrees Celsius — four notches below normal, while a similar maximum temperature is forecast for Wednesday.

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42.8°C max: 2018

After hottest day of season, mercury may hit 43C today |The Times of India

Friday saw the hottest day of the season with the mercury touching 42.8 degrees Celsius at Safdarjung, three degrees above normal.

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See also

January weather in India <> February weather in India <> March weather in India <> April weather in India <> May weather in India <> June weather in India <> July weather in India <> August weather in India <> September weather in India <> October weather in India <> November weather in India <> December weather in India