The sky has gone completely dark.
It is just 5.30 pm in the evening. Iftaar, and therefore sun set, is nearly two hours away. The whole of Saturday was quiet, sultry and hot. Suddenly, a huge dust storm blacked out Noida sky. Weather has gone completely rogue in Noida.
By 5.45 rains accompanied by squally winds hit parts of Noida. Meanwhile, parts of the city experienced power-blackout as rains hit the city accompanied by dust storm. It’s a different story, though, these days even a little breeze is triggering a power cut in our part of the city. But then, this of course, is a mighty devilish storm. Noida is drowned in the darkness. The weather changed head over heels, brings respite from the heat.
Unrelenting Summer 2018
In fact, the past week saw unrelenting summer heat. This Saturday, earlier, too was no different. The maximum temperature soared to 41 degrees while the minimum settled around 29 degrees Celsius, three degrees above the season’s average. The dust-storm in Noida and Delhi-ncr, with wind speed of up to 70 to 80 km per hour, has pushed the temperature down by a few notches on what was a sultry Saturday. The humidity levels in the capital were recorded at 71 per cent. The met dept said temperatures fell as low as 25 degree Celsius after the rain on Saturday.
Dust Storm Disrupted Normal Life
Dust storm, strong winds, and clouds turned the sky dark in Noida on Saturday. The wind speed during the dust storm that hit Noida was as high as 98 km per hour. Thunderstorm and lightening followed dust storm in Noida and other parts of Delhi NCR. Services on the Red Line and Blue Line of the Delhi Metro were affected briefly due to some snags on a few stretches after a dust storm, with winds gusting up to 70 kmph hit the city. A total of 27 flights were diverted in Delhi due to rain and dust storm between 5 pm and 6 pm. Trees uprooted in many parts of Delhi-NCR due to heavy rains. There was power blackout in some parts of Noida , Delhi and NCR.
Thunderstorm in May
Dust storm claimed 124 lives and injured more than 300 people in five states, earlier in May. The maximum casualty was reported from Uttar Pradesh where dust storm had claimed 73 lives. A total of 35 people were killed in Rajasthan, while eight were killed in Telangana, two people were killed in Punjab and six people succumbed to death in Uttarakhand due to a thunderstorm.
What Caused the Dust Storm and Weather Disturbances
According to private weather player Skymet, an east-west trough is extending from Northwest Rajasthan up to Bangladesh across South Haryana and South Uttar Pradesh was responsible for these weather activities. If this trough continues to persist, Skymet on June 7 predicted light to moderate rain and thundershower with isolated dust storm activity to continue in the Northern India around June 9. To this effect, Skymet issued a warning which read: “Duststorm thundershower with strong gusty winds would occur over Faridabad, Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Hapur and Meerut districts of Delhi and NCR during next 6 hours.”
The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) too attributed the trough created due to confluence of winds in the northern region around Haryana, Rajasthan and other parts of NCR. There are easterly winds from Bay of Bengal which are moisture laden and south-westerly winds blowing from the Arabian Sea through Haryana, Rajasthan and others. This confluence created a trough which brought rainfall in the hills, in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi NCR.
Cool winds and relatively lower temperature is likely to continue till Monday. There may be mild rain on Sunday, however the majority of rainfall activity has passed, per the RMC. However, high velocity dust storm of Saturday evening was the darkest hour in Noida in our recent memory, literally!
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