GURUGRAM: Strong gusts of wind hit Gurugram at around 5.45 pm on Friday evening, causing dust storms which impeded traffic as commuters grappled with the haze that covered the city. Wind speed reached 30 km/hour and these weather conditions lasted for over an hour.
Aishwarya who works at
Cyber City said, “It was scary as scraps of wood, metal and trash were flying around. I was leaving my office and had to run back inside, looking for shelter.” Mohit, an employee at an IT firm in Udyog Vihar, said the strong
winds whipped up litter from the streets. “Winds are normal in this season but the wind velocity seemed to be quite high. At one point of time, it seemed the winds would knock down the poles,” he said.
Six sheets covering the Rajiv Chowk underpass, which opened this January, were blown off during the storm. Saurabh Singhal, NHAI’s point person for the underpass, said, “The storm blew off the sheets over the Rajiv Chowk underpass but no one was hurt. We are carrying out repair work and the sheets will be back in place in the next few hours.”
Officials at Regional Weather Forecasting Centre (
RWFC) said that the winds were a result of a trough – low atmospheric pressure – extending from north-west Uttar Pradesh to north-west Madhya Pradesh. Officials said that the movement of the trough towards the south gave way to a steep pressure gradient, triggering squalls across the entire NCR.
“The weather conditions were compounded as there had been no rainfall in the region for a long time. So, the winds could easily whip up dust. After Gurugram and Delhi, we are expecting similar squalls in parts of UP, such as Meerut,” an official said.
Mild showers also lashed the city for a few minutes on Friday. Earlier, officials had said that a built-up of a cyclonic circulation in east UP had been sucking in moisture from Bay of Bengal. Besides, a fresh western disturbance struck the northern parts of the country on Friday and it would affect the NCR on April 9 and 10 when Gurugram is likely to receive light drizzle while parts of Haryana and Punjab would receive moderate downpour.
Officials said that there would light rainfall in the city on Saturday as well. On Friday, the maximum
temperature fell to 38 degrees Celsius while it was 39 degrees Celsius on Thursday. Winds in the evening resulted in a swift drop in mercury to 22 degrees Celsius. According to the IMD forecast, the maximum temperature on Saturday will go down a notch and stand at 37 degrees Celcius while the minimum will be 23.
Six sheets covering the Rajiv Chowk underpass, which opened this January, were blown off during the storm. 
