Residents of Delhi and surrounding areas woke last week to severe thunderstorms with intense rainfall, large hailstones and squally winds. The storms arrived in the early hours of the night, lasting six hours before easing by about 8.30am on Friday morning. At Safdarjung, the primary weather station in Delhi, 77mm of rain was recorded, the majority of which, 60mm, fell within the first three hours. The event itself was the second highest 24-hour rainfall total in Delhi during May since 1901. The deluge of rain led to flash flooding, felled trees, widespread disruption and claimed seven lives.
Further sharp showers are forecast across India this week, alongside thunderstorms across western and central parts where relatively cooler air will become situated aloft through the course of Monday and promote convection. Some forecast models show the potential for thunderstorms to produce very heavy rainfall, particularly in Gujarat and south-west Rajasthan, until Thursday. However, due to the nature of thunderstorm formation, the exact intensity can be difficult to forecast days ahead, and often still proves too tricky to predict on the day. So the conditions in Delhi on Friday morning may not have been a one-off.
Cooler air will also bring lower than normal daytime temperatures to these regions with temperatures broadly 3-5C lower than normal, which is typically the high-30Cs . The city of Surat, located in the south of Gujarat, may have temperatures quelled by up to 7-8C during the middle of the week, with temperatures reaching about 30C. These lower temperatures will be welcome respite after the early heatwave conditions in April and the ongoing heat elsewhere in the nation.
Western Europe has had its fair share of showers too as an area of low pressure swept eastward across the Iberian peninsula over the weekend, which brought clusters of heavy storms to northern France on Saturday. Paris was among the places affected, with bursts of hail across the city covering streets with marble-sized hailstones, and four metro stations being shut down due to flash flooding. This area of low pressure is expected to continue moving east, with Italy in line for stormy conditions on Monday and Tuesday, particularly in the north and west, where the Italian meteorological service has issued amber warnings.