A thick layer of fog was seen in several parts of the city, weather officials said.
The IMD has fancy weather-monitoring radars in the name of providing better forecasts.
Satellite imagery showed a dense elongated band of fog stretching from Punjab to the northeast.
Delhi sweltered under intense heat as the Safdarjung observatory, considered the official marker of the national capital, noted a high of 43.8 degrees Celsius, four notches above the normal average.
The IMD chief also allayed fears of occurrence of an El-Nino.
After churning across the Arabian Sea for more than 10 days, Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday.
The met department said that rainfall in August is projected to be within the normal range at 97% of LPA. In August and September, India receives around 43 mm of rainfall.
While it hit the national capital two days before schedule, its entry into the financial capital is two weeks late, the Met office said.
El Nino is expected to occur in August-September, but it is unlikely to have any major impact on the monsoon, and the weatherman expects a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which has a strong influence on rainfall in the country.
Among the Sensex constituents, 18 stocks closed in negative with UltraTech Cement, L&T, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance and Tech Mahindra being major laggards. Other heavyweights like Asian Paints, Maruti, Titan and JSW Steel also saw heavy selling. In contrast, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserve, HDFC Bank, ITC and SBI bucked the trend and ended the session with a gain of up to 2.09 per cent.
The southwest monsoon season concluded on Saturday with India receiving 'below-average' cumulative rainfall -- 820 mm compared to the long-period average of 868.6 mm -- in an El Nino year.
As Kerala battles severe heat, the meteorological department has issued a maximum temperature warning for 12 districts for the upcoming five days.
'Very severe cyclonic storm Biparjoy at 2330 hrs IST of 9th June over east-central Arabian Sea near lat 16.0N & long 67.4E. Likely to intensify further & move north-northeastwards during the next 24hrs,' the IMD said in a tweet.
'Usually the average rainfall per day is around 8 mm and India is receiving 10 to 11 mm per day since the last one week.' 'July seems to be very good for the entire country.'
The India meteorological department's Mumbai centre has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in the city and suburbs in the next 24 hours, with a possibility of occasional gusty winds reaching 50-60 kmph, the official said.
Authorities were on their toes in Banaskantha and Patan districts and relocated thousands of people residing in low-lying areas to safer places, they said.
The five warmest years in Indian weather history have occurred in the past 14 years -- the others being 2009, 2017 and 2010, in order of intensity.
With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
Sowing had started on a sluggish note in several parts of the country because of delay in the onset of the monsoon but has picked up pace subsequently as the rains progressed and performed appreciably well in August.
The weather department has predicted occasional intense rain spells in the city in the next 24 hours.
The air quality is expected to improve further due to wind speed favourable for the dispersion of pollutants.
The situation in fact is not that worrying for Thursday and IMD regional director Ganesh Das said the rain is expected to be "light and moderate".
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is unlikely to cut the benchmark interest rate at its upcoming monetary policy review meeting, taking place soon after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election results, amid inflation challenges, said experts. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may also refrain from rate cut as economic growth is picking up, notwithstanding the elevated interest rate of 6.5 per cent (repo) prevailing since February 2023. The meeting of the Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das headed MPC is scheduled for June 5 to 7.
As India's electricity demand soars, the power ministry on Tuesday reviewed the power supply situation to ensure 'zero load shedding' during the summer months. The ministry has drafted plans ranging from delaying planned maintenance of thermal power stations to mandatory operations of imported coal-based and gas-based stations till September. In a series of meetings with industry stakeholders, Union Minister for Power, New, and Renewable Energy R K Singh emphasised the importance of adequate planning to avoid situations where one state has surplus power while another state faces shortages.
Hailstorms were reported at various parts of the national capital including Palam, Chilpighat and Ayanagar, the IMD said.
Tourist centres have been closed in many districts, including Kottayam and Thiruvananthapuram, and a night travel ban has been imposed in the hilly areas of Idukki district.
This is the first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal this pre-monsoon season.
By now, monsoon should have reached the central India, including parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, but it is yet to reach Maharashtra.
Aizawl has been cut off from the rest of the country due to a landslide on National Highway 6 at Hunthar.
A depression over the southeast Arabian Sea, south of Porbandar in Gujarat, is likely to move northwestward and intensify into a cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department said on Tuesday.
The official India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the private Skymet Weather Services have made widely divergent monsoon forecasts.
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East and northeast India recorded 29 per cent rain deficit -- 141.5 mm against the normal of 199.9 mm -- from March 1 to May 3.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) reported very strong results for the January-March quarter of the last financial year (Q4FY24), beating consensus comfortably. The margins of the automobile business improved 170 basis points (bps) year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to 8.8 per cent, while FES (Farm Equipment Sector) margins improved to 15.8 per cent (up 60 bps Y-o-Y), despite a decline in volumes due to cost optimisation and lower raw material costs.
For Tuesday, the IMD said heavy to very heavy rains, with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places, are likely over Assam and Meghalaya.
Also, the monsoon this year may end up being the driest since 2015, which recorded a rainfall deficit of 13 per cent, they said.
Above-normal heatwave days are predicted in most parts of central, east and northwest India during this period.
'Dense' to 'very dense' fog prevailed in parts of Punjab, Haryana, west Rajasthan, Bihar, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam.
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