The national capital received moderate rains towards Monday evening, lasting for about half an hour, even as the Met Department stood by its prediction of dry week ahead with only light rains for next two days.

On Monday, hours after the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted a dry week, Delhi and surrounding areas, including Noida and Ghaziabad recieved moderate rain lasting for about half an hour.

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Delhi may see more such showers over night, with weather department stating such rains to be result of local developments and not the “proper monsoon rains”.

According to Met, on Monday, Safdarjung area received 21.8mm rainfall while the Palam area received about 35.4 mm rains between 8.30 am to 8.30pm.

“There are chances of on and off drizzling to moderate rains for the next two days, but overall the week will remain dry.

“The mercury is set to rise through the week and maximum temperatures may hover around 41 to 42 degrees Celsius by the end of this week,” an IMD official told IANS.

“Isolated pockets of Delhi and surrounding regions may receive rains for Tuesday and Wednesday, however overall the region would remain dry at least July 7. The NCR will remain mostly dry and temperatures will rise,” Kuldeep Srivastava, senior scientist at IMD, told IANS.

“There had been deficiency of rains in June in Delhi but as monsoon rains are expected to catch up by mid-July, the overall rainfall would be balanced,” Srivastava added.

According to the private weather forecasting agency Skymet, the National Capital Region (NCR) will see good and consistent rainfall from July 9.

Earlier, the weather agencies had predicted the arrival of monsoon and good rainfall in the national capital between June 28 and July 1. The scenario changed due to the meteorological reasons.

“The Monday evening rainfall was a result of local development and not the south-west monsoon, this is the reason that it rained moderate for less than half an hour and then stopped… more drizzles in isolated pockets could be seen in next two days, then it is likely to be dry till July 7 to 8,” Mahesh Palawat, Director of Skymet, told IANS.

He added that the proper monsoon rainfall will strike return to Delhi around July 9 to 10.

So far in June (till June 27), Delhi saw 24 mm rainfall (pre monsoon activity) which is 49 per cent deficient as the normal rains should have been around 47.5mm, according to IMD.

For the country as a whole, 7 per cent deficiency in the overall rainfall has been registered from June 1 to July 1, according to Skymet.