Delhi Weather this May;

After a line of W.D.'s, Delhi this May (only May, summer not yet over) had absolutely normal temperatures. None of the extreme heat, except for only a couple of days early in the season when the mercury touched 43c, and thus maintaining a normal average. The minimum temperature in Delhi has been below normal and "comfortably ok".None of the 32-33c in the nights as yet. In fact there were a few days with the low around 20c, 19.6c to be exact. The overall average temperature for May this year was just normal, 0.14c below normal to be precise !The diagram for May gives a clear picture of the average and the maximum and minimum temperatures, and the departures from normal (red and blue colours indicative of the variation).

For information, in contrast, the highest ever recorded at Delhi (Safdarjung) was 47.2c on 29th. May 1944. While the lowest ever recorded in May was17.5 on 12th.May 1964, not too far from this year's minimum.

No surprise that Delhi had 74mm of rain in May, surpassed only once before in 2002, when 132 mm of rain was recorded. And the number of rain days this year was 10 in May, against a normal of 2/3 days. This diagram gives a clear picture of precipitation this year.

Monsoon Watch - 20

Carrying on from MW-19, the" sudden push" mentioned has pushed the monsoon into Karnatak, on the next day ,29th. But, as estimated, the gathering of the clouds in the Arabian Sea is not gaining enough monentum to keep up the pace of the last two days. Heating up in the plains of the sub continent is taking place, but slower than expected, and the "tail" of the W.D. hangs around in the form of an upper air trough. A mass of rain bearing clouds has developed over the Sindh coast very near to Karachi.

Thus for the monsoon clouds to get organised in the western arena it may take yet another 3 days.The winds are not strong enough and cannot gain strenght due to lack of temperature gradiant (low pressure not enough inland). The only positive factor for this today is the trough off the west coast of India.

These observations are best that I can infer from my experience, and I am no expert. The actual behaviour of nature will always puzzle the best of meteorologists and computer models and prove the weatherman right or wrong.

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