Even as the city simmered with high daytime temperatures in the past week, thundershowers that lashed the city in the early hours of Saturday brought some relief though it was short-lived.
The spell lasted for an hour but the clouds soon petered out after sunrise and the mercury shot up to 38.6 degree Celsius by afternoon. The amount of rainfall recorded at Waltair was 12.3 mm while at Airport it was 3.5 mm on Saturday.
The triggering of thunderstorm activity in the region brought in some good news as weather officials predicted further spells of thunderstorms and rainfall at a few places in the next 24 hours. Thanks to the cyclonic storm ‘Laila', the month of May received an average rainfall of 21 cm as compared to the paltry rainfall figure of 19.4 mm during May last year.
Meanwhile, the southwest monsoon is expected to cover Kerala in the next two days. According to the officials of Cyclone Warning Centre, monsoon is expected to cross Andhra coast within a week after it touched Kerala.
