Meteorologists said that the Forecasting models “failed” to predict the extreme weather event that took Delhi residents by surprise early Friday, resulting in a record 228.1 mm of rainfall.
This is a record high for the month of June since 1936 and more than three times the June average of 74.1 mm.
According to an IMD official, severe rains were experienced in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir as a result of the monsoon winds interacting with the remnants of a western disturbance.
Independent scientists suggested that a thunderstorm over North Delhi could have triggered the torrential rains.
On June 26, the IMD had merely forecasted light to moderate rain and thunderstorms with blustery gusts for Friday, June 28.
On Thursday afternoon, the Met office noted that a trough extended from a cyclonic circulation over central Gujarat to west Bihar in the lower tropospheric levels.
Scientist Soma Sen Roy stated that this trough was bringing precipitation into north and central India during the weekly weather briefing that was posted on the IMD’s YouTube channel.
“The east-west trough is likely to strengthen during the week and rainfall will increase over north India,” she explained.
In the extended range forecast released by the IMD on Thursday night, “fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning over northwest and east India during the next five days” was anticipated.
It also suggested “very heavy rainfall” over Delhi on June 29 and June 30, but no one expected the torrential rain on Friday morning.
On Friday at 4:58 a.m., the IMD alerting that “light to moderate intensity rain with heavy intensity rain over a few places and winds of 20-40 kmph would occur over and adjoining areas of entire Delhi and NCR, Gannaur, Sonepat, Kharkhoda, Jhajjar, Sohna, Palwal, Baraut, Baghpat, Khekra, Pilakhua, and Sikandrabad during the next two hours”.
Later, it reported that the Safdarjung Observatory recorded 148.5 mm of rainfall between 2:30 am and 5:30 am, indicating that much of the rain had already occurred before the IMD issued the alert.
Additionally, it announced that the primary rain-bearing system will arrive in Delhi in two to three days, less than fifteen hours after predicting the arrival of the monsoon in the city on Friday noon.
“Not much rainfall was happening due to the eastern arm of the monsoon in West Bengal, Bihar, and up to Uttar Pradesh. The eastern arm monsoon moved slowly. But one pulse suddenly arrived from the Madhya Pradesh side. Nobody expected this massive amount of moisture,” an IMD official said, requesting anonymity.
“The models could not capture it. Also, convective clouds started developing in the evening and intensified over time. Predicting thunderstorms in advance is not easy,” the official added.
Research scientist Akshay Deoras of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science stated: “On June 28, at approximately 2.45 am IST, a thunderstorm appeared north of New Delhi. Perhaps one of the contributing factors to its inception was the large-scale storm passing over Uttar Pradesh.” By 4.15 IST, the megastorm above Delhi had intensified into a severe storm. The Uttar Pradesh storm was also headed towards the city. He wrote on X that “the Delhi storm may have been intensified in part by outflow from the Uttar Pradesh storm.”
The IMD on Friday issued an orange-colour warning, predicting heavy to very heavy rain in the city on Saturday and Sunday.
Meteorologists said that the Forecasting models “failed” to predict the extreme weather event that took Delhi residents by surprise early Friday, resulting in a record 228.1 mm of rainfall.
This is a record high for the month of June since 1936 and more than three times the June average of 74.1 mm.
According to an IMD official, severe rains were experienced in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir as a result of the monsoon winds interacting with the remnants of a western disturbance.
Independent scientists suggested that a thunderstorm over North Delhi could have triggered the torrential rains.
On June 26, the IMD had merely forecasted light to moderate rain and thunderstorms with blustery gusts for Friday, June 28.
On Thursday afternoon, the Met office noted that a trough extended from a cyclonic circulation over central Gujarat to west Bihar in the lower tropospheric levels.
Scientist Soma Sen Roy stated that this trough was bringing precipitation into north and central India during the weekly weather briefing that was posted on the IMD’s YouTube channel.
“The east-west trough is likely to strengthen during the week and rainfall will increase over north India,” she explained.
In the extended range forecast released by the IMD on Thursday night, “fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning over northwest and east India during the next five days” was anticipated.
It also suggested “very heavy rainfall” over Delhi on June 29 and June 30, but no one expected the torrential rain on Friday morning.
On Friday at 4:58 a.m., the IMD alerting that “light to moderate intensity rain with heavy intensity rain over a few places and winds of 20-40 kmph would occur over and adjoining areas of entire Delhi and NCR, Gannaur, Sonepat, Kharkhoda, Jhajjar, Sohna, Palwal, Baraut, Baghpat, Khekra, Pilakhua, and Sikandrabad during the next two hours”.
Later, it reported that the Safdarjung Observatory recorded 148.5 mm of rainfall between 2:30 am and 5:30 am, indicating that much of the rain had already occurred before the IMD issued the alert.
Additionally, it announced that the primary rain-bearing system will arrive in Delhi in two to three days, less than fifteen hours after predicting the arrival of the monsoon in the city on Friday noon.
“Not much rainfall was happening due to the eastern arm of the monsoon in West Bengal, Bihar, and up to Uttar Pradesh. The eastern arm monsoon moved slowly. But one pulse suddenly arrived from the Madhya Pradesh side. Nobody expected this massive amount of moisture,” an IMD official said, requesting anonymity.
“The models could not capture it. Also, convective clouds started developing in the evening and intensified over time. Predicting thunderstorms in advance is not easy,” the official added.
Research scientist Akshay Deoras of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science stated: “On June 28, at approximately 2.45 am IST, a thunderstorm appeared north of New Delhi. Perhaps one of the contributing factors to its inception was the large-scale storm passing over Uttar Pradesh.” By 4.15 IST, the megastorm above Delhi had intensified into a severe storm. The Uttar Pradesh storm was also headed towards the city. He wrote on X that “the Delhi storm may have been intensified in part by outflow from the Uttar Pradesh storm.”
The IMD on Friday issued an orange-colour warning, predicting heavy to very heavy rain in the city on Saturday and Sunday.
