After showers, it is raining troubles

BENGALURU: Tuesday's thundershowers across north and west Bengaluru, besides some areas on the south-eastern city outskirts, resulted in chaos. Around 61 trees were uprooted, live wires snapped and 36 electricity poles broke down across the city. In two of the major tree fall cases, one massive tree came down on a house in Malleswaram which partially damaged the house, while in Mahalakshmi Layout, another tree fell on two cars and a bike, damaging all three vehicles. However, there were no reports of casualties in any of the cases.

Sanjaynagar saw the worst damage in terms of tree fall, with reports of 31 cases of trees or branches damaging electricity supply lines that came in. In many areas, power had not been restored till late in the night. As temperatures soared in the morning and reached a high of 34 degrees, the afternoon brought some relief with thundershowers across several areas of the city.

According to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (KSNDMC), Kottegepalya received around 100 mm rain in an hour; Vidyaranyapura, 50 mm; Anekal 64 mm; Nelamangala recorded 39.5 mm. The thundershowers were mainly concentrated on north and western parts of the city. Recorded wind speeds showed RR Nagar the highest at 34 km per hour, but experts say there were severe gusts of wind during the thundershowers which caused the trees to fall, causing power cuts in several areas. As the rain increased towards early evening, power cuts were reported from areas like Hebbal, RMV extension, Vijayanagar, Mahalakshmi Layout, Austin Town, Geddalahalli and surrounding areas.

According to the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), a total of 6,252 complaints were registered from all four zones of the city.

The weather is expected to remain the same on Wednesday, with rain and thundershowers forecast during the evening for the city, according to the Indian Meteorological Department. The maximum and minimum temperatures will remain around 34 and 23 degrees celsius, respectively. The department has also issued a warning of strong winds for the Karnataka coastline and advised fishermen not to venture out to sea.

According to Dr. M B Rajegowda, agrometeorologist at University of Agricultural Sciences, the city is experiencing pre-monsoon showers. The accumulation of heat in the atmosphere gives rise to local convectional clouds which are said to be high in density. This is due to drop in atmospheric pressure due to the accumulation of heat. Bengaluru’s humidity was poised at an average of 43% around 4 pm. But this is set to go up in the days to come. Sundar Metri, a scientist at the Meteorological Centre, Bengaluru, said the city can expect light rainfall for the next five days due to existing weather systems. The humidity is set to increase steadily due to the difference in wind patterns.