Delhi gridlocked after downpour floods streets, flights hit too
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Delhi gridlocked after downpour floods streets, flights hit too
Rush-hour commuters were stranded on the roads and flight schedules disrupted on Wednesday evening. A northward shift in the monsoon triggered rains in several parts of Delhi, inundating streets in knee-deep water. The wettest part of Delhi received 60mm of rain and the driest, 1.4mm. IMD said more rain would whip the city on Thursday, but wane from Friday. At least six flights were diverted in the evening, due to bad weather, including two to Lucknow and four to Jaipur. The flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed over 300 flights were delayed, with an average delay time of 38 minutes. Delhi’s Public Works Department (PWD) and water minister Parvesh Verma inspected Minto Bridge, a waterlogging hotspot in past spells of rain, and shared a video. “You can see despite such heavy rain, there is no waterlogged and no submerged buses at Minto bridge,” he said.
The showers marked a rapid turnaround in the weather, after a muggy afternoon, prompting the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to revise its forecast as dark clouds started cloaking the city. IMD said more rain would whip the city on Thursday, but wane from Friday.
Wednesday’s showers were uneven, with the wettest part of Delhi receiving 60mm of rain and the driest, 1.4mm. But the traffic disruptions were widespread, as drains overflowed in many arterial roads and crucial intersections.
Lengthy traffic jams were reported across Outer Ring Road, Mathura Road, parts of Ring Road and in ITO, Mahipalpur, Bishambar Das Marg, Shastri Park, Kashmere Gate, West Patel Nagar, Kailash Colony and Krishna Nagar to name but a few. The massive traffic snarls continued till late evening , trapping commuters returning to their homes in the city and other parts of the National Capital Region (NCR). Several motorists detailed the chaos in social media posts and called on the Delhi Traffic Police to clear the roads.
“The heavy rains caused waterlogging on many roads that disrupted the movement of vehicles and led to traffic jams. Considering the inconvenience caused to motorists, we increased the deployment of traffic personnel on the affected roads to regulate the traffic flow and coordinate with the civic agencies concerned to clear water from the streets using pumps,” said additional commissioner of police (traffic) Dinesh Kumar Gupta. Mobile pumps were also used to clear the waterlogging, he added.
Earlier, Delhi’s Public Works Department (PWD) and water minister Parvesh Verma inspected Minto Bridge, a waterlogging hotspot in past spells of rain, and shared a video. “You can see despite such heavy rain, there is no waterlogging and no submerged buses at Minto Bridge. The Delhi government has been working hard on waterlogging points in the city and while you may see visuals from some places where there is waterlogging, I want to tell the people work is going on and we will soon fix all these places. Challenging points like Minto Bridge, ITO and Moolchand flyover have already been fixed,” he said.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport said in an advisory while airport operations were normal, passengers are advised to use alternative modes of transport, including the Delhi Metro, to reach the airport and avoid potential delays on the road. Indigo issued a similar advisory.
At least six flights were diverted in the evening, due to bad weather. This included two to Lucknow and four to Jaipur, an airport official said. The flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed over 300 flights were delayed, with an average delay time of 38 minutes.
At the beginning of the day, IMD issued a yellow alert for “light to moderate rain”. This was revised to an orange alert for light to moderately intense rain at 3.45pm for northwest and northeast Delhi and expanded to the entire city at 6pm. But as the showers started, IMD issued a red alert at 6.30pm, warning of “moderate to heavy rain”.
IMD classifies rainfall as ‘light’ when it is up to 15.5mm; as ‘moderate’ when it is between 15.6 to 64.4mm and as ‘heavy’ when it is over 64.4mm in a 24-hour window.
No rain was recorded in the city till 5.30pm in the city. IMD data showed between 5.30pm and 8.30pm, Safdarjung, Delhi’s base station, recorded 1.4mm, Palam 14.4mm, Pragati Maidan 37.7mm, Pusa 30.5mm, Najafgarh 60mm, Janakpuri 4mm, North Campus 22mm, Naraina 6.5mm, Ayanagar 50.5mm and Mungeshpur 7mm.
“Delhi received such rain due to two upper air cyclonic circulations over north Haryana and another over northwest Uttar Pradesh and shifting of the monsoon trough towards north of its normal position,” said IMD scientist Naresh Kumar. “The monsoon trough is expected to remain close to Delhi-NCR on Thursday, before shifting from Friday. A dip in rain activity is thus likely over the weekend,” Kumar added.
The Global Forecast System (GFS) — a weather model run by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) of the US —data sourced from weather website tropicaltidbits.com predicted over 50mm rain across the city from 5.30pm on July 9 to 5.30pm on July 10.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president at private weather forecaster Skymet too said the rain was down to the monsoon trough passing over Delhi. “It was over Delhi, before moving towards Punjab and Haryana. Even then, due to the proximity, we saw moderate showers over Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) at several places. Such activity is likely to continue till Thursday and a few intense spells cannot be ruled out,” he said.
By midnight, the traffic police said the situation has improved at most places, though traffic snarls clogged some spots, primarily junctions and waterlogged spots.
Soon after the rains started around 6pm, in south Delhi, both carriageways of the Mathura Road between Ashram Chowk and Badarpur were choked. The Outer Ring Road between Munirka and Okhla also witnessed bumper-to-bumper traffic, with vehicles moving at a snail’s pace. Heavy traffic was also reported on both carriageways of the Delhi-Gururam highway via Mahipalpur and Sardar Patel Marg, the Mehrauli-Gurugram (MG) Road, at multiple points on the Aurobindo Marg between AIIMS and Mehrauli, on the Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, and the route between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar.
Similarly, heavy traffic blocked Ring Road, especially between Kashmere Gate and Vijay Ghat in north Delhi and between Pitampura and Rajouri Garden. Traffic jams were reported from other roads of north, west, central and east Delhi such as New Rohtak Road, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Marg, Rani Jhansi Road, Najafgarh Road, Shankar Road, Pusa Road, Patel Nagar-Moti Nagar route, Delhi-Meerut Expressway and the DND flyway connecting Delhi with Ghaziabad and Noida and Vikas Marg connecting central and east Delhi.
The monsoon covered Delhi and the rest of the country on June 29, this year. While this was two days late for Delhi, it was nine days early for the rest of the country. The onset in the city saw 14mm rain in the 24 hours till 8:30 am on June 30. However, monsoon showers have mostly been subdued and scattered since then.
So far this month, Delhi has logged 19.6mm rain. Normally, the city sees 209.7mm for the entire month. Last year, 203.7mm was recorded in July.
On Wednesday, the maximum in the city stood at 35.6°C, which was a degree below normal. The minimum stood at 26.4°C, two degrees below normal. A drop in temperature is likely on Thursday, with the maximum expected to hover between 31-33°C and the minimum between 22-24°C, the IMD has said.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s air quality was ‘satisfactory’ for the 14th straight day. The average air quality index (AQI) stood at 81 (satisfactory) at 4pm, an improvement from 98 (satisfactory) on Tuesday.