Delhi sees highest ever rainfall in 24 hours for May

Setting an all-time record, Delhi received 119.3 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours, the highest amount noted in the month of May since records began, officials from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Thursday.

Under the influence of cyclone Tauktae’s remnants and a Western Disturbance, rain battered the city throughout Wednesday until the early hours of Thursday.

The IMD’s Safdarjung observatory, which is representative of the city, recorded 119.3 mm of rainfall in 24 hours till 8.30 am on Thursday. Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre, said this was an all-time record for the month of May.

Previously, the highest amount of rain Delhi has received in 24 hours was 60mm on May 24, 1976, show IMD records.

A higher amount of rainfall was recorded by IMD’s Lodhi Road observatory in the last 24 hours — 124.4mm — while South Delhi’s Ayanagar received 98mm and Southwest Delhi’s Najafgarh recorded 93 mm. IMD’s observatory in Gurgaon recorded 68 mm of rainfall, while Noida received 1 mm.

Delhi also recorded a maximum temperature of 23.8 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, which is 16 degrees below normal and the lowest maximum ever seen in the month of May since 1951, which is the year from when IMD started preserving data in a digitised format.

The normal maximum temperature for this time of the year in Delhi is 40.2 degrees Celsius, as per IMD’s climatological data. The previous record for lowest maximum temperature in the month was 24.8 degrees Celsius on May 13, 1982.

Meanwhile, water supply in outer southwest Delhi’s villages will be done through tankers for the next three days as a road caved-in in Najafgarh area following heavy rain on Wednesday, damaging water pipelines.