b-luru-rain-breaks-133-year-old-record

Close on the heels of Southwest Monsoon setting over Karnataka Coast, intense thundershowers, heavy rain and strong winds lit up the skies over Bengaluru on Sunday evening resulting in a record spell of rain. 

The heavy rain that battered the city uniformly, till late in the night, set a record for the wettest day in June by breaking the 133-year-old meteorological record. Until midnight on Sunday, Bengaluru received a whopping 111 mm of rainfall making it the wettest day in June till date.

According to the officials from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Bengaluru, the last record for the highest rainfall on a single day was on 16 June 1891 when the city recorded 101.6mm of rainfall. 

Surprisingly, Bengaluru also completed its monthly quota of rainfall. The average rainfall for the month of June in Bengaluru is about 110.3 mm.

However, the city over the last two days of June has already reported more than 120mm of rainfall according to the officials of IMD.

The highest rainfall in Bengaluru was recorded at Hampi Nagar with a rainfall of 110.50mm followed by Maruti Mandira ward (89.50 mm), Vidyapeetha (88.50 mm) and Cottonpet (87.50 mm). With cloudy conditions set to continue over Bengaluru over the next few days, the IMD has cautioned the citizens that on Monday as well, the city is likely to receive moderate to heavy thunderstorms along with strong, gusty winds with 30 to 40 km per hour.

The heavy rain all through evening and night also left behind a massive infrastructural mess with the civic agencies of Bengaluru struggling to cope with. Over 100 trees were uprooted since evening and branches of over 500 trees fell on roads, houses, vehicles in several areas of Bengaluru inflicting severe damage to properties. Just as the thunderstorms were beginning to pound the city, the power transmission was also severely affected with transmission lines snapping in several areas following tree branch falling or uprooting of trees.

The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) also suffered severe damage especially the light poles, transformers and service stations in different parts of the city. While the power cut was replete with entire Bengaluru during the thundershowers, a few of the areas remained dark throughout the night. Even though many arterial and minor roads were inundated and flooded, the impact on motorists was less owing to the Sunday holiday.