Hyderabad: Southwest monsoon is waiting in the wings ready to take centrestage by this weekend.
Indian Met Department Director General K.G. Ramesh said the monsoon rains have covered Konkan and the Goa coast and is currently heading northwards. By the end of this week, it should show its presence in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Moderate to heavy rains are expected. The low pressure developed in central Bay of Bengal resulting in thunderstorms had affected the monsoon date in north-coastal Andhra Pradesh.
But now, the monsoon is back on course. “As we predicted, there will be normal monsoon in both the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh; it was a bit slow to advance northwards but that was a temporary phenomenon due to rough conditions in the seas. Once that was cleared everything is back to normal,” asserts the Director General.
But thunderstorms, he said, will continue to occur at several places in both the States. However, heavy rains in the catchment areas of both Godavari and Krishna in upper Karn-ataka and Maharashtra and in Tungabhadra basin in southern Karnataka have not happened so far as there are no inflows recorded at Tungabhadra and Almatti dams causing serious concern for all the Krishna river based projects in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Almatti Project level was at a low of 1,562.30 ft on Sunday, as against the 1,658 ft last year on the same day; Nagarjuna Sagar touched an all-time low level of 502.10 ft as against 505.60 ft last year. Srisailam level touched 777 ft as against 776.70 ft level last year and this was because of the meager inflow of 1,800 cusecs due to local rains.
Thunderstorm strikes parts of Hyderabad
A thunderstorm struck numerous parts of Hyderabad late on Sunday. Till last heard, there was no damage reported to police, fire services and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
The GHMC has already issued an alert on the possibilities of heavy rains in the western and northern parts of the city and Bowenpally has been receiving heavy rain for about one-and-half hour, from 7.30 pm to 9 pm. Heavy rains with loud thunder began at about 8.45 pm in Malkajgiri, Kushaiguda, Jawaharnagar and Alwal.
Due to waterlogging at Chinna Tokatta in Bowenpally, Trimulgherry Junction and Lothukunta, traffic slowed down during peak hours and traffic police from Trimulgherry, Bowenpally and Alwal tried to clear the traffic at waterlogging points.
As there was an alert from the IMD on the possibilities of heavy rains in IT corridor, Maheshwaram, Rajendranagar and Shamshabad, Commissioner of GHMC B. Janardhan Reddy held a teleconference with engineers and emergency teams and directed them for an alert during the night.
Till the last report, rain began at Kapra, Uppal, L.B. Nagar, Khairatabad, Serilingampally and cantonment areas. The entire city was under a blanket of thick clouds.
