Moderate rainfall with strong winds lashed across Bengaluru on Saturday evening until the early hours of Sunday. There were isolated incidents of hailstorm as well. With rain and thunderstorm, there have been reports of minor waterlogging and multiple trees being uprooted causing damage to property and interruption in power supply over the last 24 hours.
Indiranagar, RPC Layout, Vijaynagar, Jayanagar, Kadugodi, Basavangudi. Kalyan Nagar were the affected areas due to trees being uprooted. There has been no harm to life reported in this period, BBMP officials confirmed.
Weathermen have predicted that rain in Bengaluru and other neighbouring districts in the Cauvery basin area will continue over the next week before south-west monsoon sets in.
The Indian Meteorological Department has said over the course of next week, there will be partly cloudy sky with one or two spells of rain along with thundershowers.
“We are expecting some showers over some parts of the state over the coming week due to cyclonic circulation over the region. The rains will be mainly in south interior Karnataka, coastal and Malnad regions. There will be hardly any rainfall in north Karnataka,” Sunil M Gavaskar, Meteorologist, at the Karnataka State Disaster Monitoring Centre, said.
Bengaluru and parts of south-interior Karnataka had been receiving light to moderate rainfall over the last two weeks with isolated heavy rainfalls in some places.
According to the latest data, while Bengaluru Urban had a 3% deficit in rainfall, Bengaluru Rural had 65% excess rainfall for the pre-monsoon period. While Bengaluru has received copious rains, it has not been widespread across the entire state.
“Other than a few districts including Bengaluru, overall for the state the pre-monsoon rainfall has also been deficient,” he added.
With a below-par monsoon, the state is staring at another year of drought.
“The onset of monsoon is expected to take place on June 6 ( +/- 4 days) by the IMD (Indian Meteorological Department). It will take another two days to reach in Karnataka after it onsets in Kerala. This year for the whole country we are expecting near normal to below normal but we will get a regional-wise forecast in the first week of June. Then we will get to know a little better,” Gavaskar further explained.