Delhi’s annual rain milestone, Gurugram floods again

A strong spell of showers across the city and the National Capital Region (NCR) flooded streets and caused traffic chaos, particularly in Gurugram, on Saturday, nearly four-and-a-half months before the end of the year.

The Safdarjung station, which is representative of the city’s weather, has received 775.8mm rain so far this year, exceeding the annual average of 774.4mm, with 12 days remaining in August — the city’s wettest month — and more than a third of the year remaining, according to data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

This threshold was surpassed even earlier in 2021, when the city received 780.1mm of precipitation by August 1 and 1,526.8mm for the entire year. Last year, Delhi received 811,4 mm of precipitation.

Certainly, the city receives the majority of its precipitation during the monsoon months of June, July, and August. The final four months of the year receive a total of 152.6 millimetres of precipitation.

Still, Saturday morning’s rainfall caught commuters off guard and inundated several areas of the Capital, with reports of waterlogging in Najafgarh, Punjabi Bagh, and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Shivam Chouhan, a resident of Patparganj, stated, “I almost missed my morning departure due to the rain-slowed traffic. This was exacerbated by people seeking refuge under flyovers at multiple locations, blocking other vehicles.”

Traffic police officers reported that they dispatched real-time alerts to inform commuters of the flooding in a number of areas and also stationed additional personnel to maintain traffic flow.

“We deployed additional personnel around the Outer Ring Road and at the Delhi-Gurugram border, but weekend traffic was unaffected. “In the majority of flooded areas, flooding subsided rapidly,” said a traffic police officer.

After Yamuna’s waters reached record levels in July, forcing the administration to evacuate people living on the river’s floodplains en masse and disrupting city life for days, authorities in Delhi have been on high alert for weeks.

Even as officials blamed the river’s swollen waters — which crested at 208.66m on July 13, above the danger threshold of 207.33m — for the flooding, experts said that the city’s antiquated sewerage network and the absence of a proper drainage master plan had only exacerbated the Capital’s plight.

Once again, however, Gurugram bore the bulk of the rain, with large portions of Millennium City flooding on Saturday, stranding commuters for several hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic jams.

Saturday at 5:30 p.m., the weather service reported that Gurugram received 62 millimetres of precipitation over the previous 24 hours.

The heavily travelled NH-48 was struck the hardest, but few neighbourhoods were spared in a problem that has plagued the city for years.

Residents and experts have blamed Gurugram’s inadequate drainage system, unplanned development, and ever-growing traffic for the persistent rain chaos.

Officials said they received complaints of flooding from the Narsinghpur stretch of the Delhi-Gurgaon Motorway, areas near Iffco Chowk Metro station, as well as neighbourhoods in and around Hero Honda Chowk, Rajiv Chowk, Vatika Chowk, Iffco Chowk, Kherki Daula, Golf Course Extension Road, Southern Peripheral Road, Udyog Vihar, Sohna Road, Basai, Khandsa Road and Pataudi Road.

This year, with the exception of February, every month except February has seen above-average rainfall in Delhi, and the actual rainfall has been above average in each of these months.

In January, the city recorded 20,4 mm of precipitation, compared to the average of 19,1 mm. In March, Delhi received 53.2 mm of precipitation, compared to the average of 17.4 mm. This quantity decreased to 20.1mm in April (when the average is 16.3mm), increased to 111mm in May (30.7mm), 101.7mm in June (74.1mm), and 384.6mm in July (209.7mm).

This month, the Capital has received 84.8mm of precipitation.

IMD forecasted a few days of moderate rain for the city.

“Until Tuesday, generally cloudy skies with light rain or precipitation and the possibility of thunderstorms are expected. The agency’s Saturday forecast predicts that the days will remain warm.

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Saturday in Delhi was warmer than usual despite the rain.

The maximum temperature was four degrees Celsius (°C) above normal, while the minimum temperature was two degrees Celsius (°C) above normal.