HYDERABAD: The city, which was already experiencing cold weather, saw light drizzle on Sunday morning and again in the early evening, which caught many off guard as they ventured out unprepared, despite the forecast. Weekend plans of some people were almost derailed when rain fell on Saturday evening in a few areas, but only for about 40 minutes.
The MET department forecasted light rainfall in Hyderabad between December 10-12 due to Cyclone Mandous, the Northeast Monsoon rising from the Bay of Bengal. The rains further lowered the temperatures in the city, with some areas experiencing lows of 13º and 14 º Celsius.
Dr K. Nagaratna, the head scientist at IMD-Hyderabad, forecast that the rains will most likely stop on Sunday and that very few to no places will see rain on Monday.
"The cyclone will not affect Telangana any longer, and if it does, it will most likely be drizzles," she said. While a cloudy sky is expected to persist for a few more days, dry weather is expected to prevail over Hyderabad beginning on December 14.
The slight drizzle caused traffic jams at a few intersections, including Patthargatti, Chaderghat, Liberty, and Tank Bund, as two-wheelers came to a halt under flyovers and metro stations, causing roads to become congested for a short while before returning to normalcy.
Some street vendors were delighted to welcome customers in search of hot food and beverages. Some celebrated the unexpected rain with aesthetic pictures like a coffee mug on a dewy windowsill on Instagram stories and Twitter, while others frowned at the showers interrupting their weekend outings.
Suresh Reddy, a Twitter user, shared a meme to explain how rains combined with diversions ruined his weekend, while Shiva Krishna Veera called the combination of rain and cold winter 'deadly', and Pranav Ram Kandala tweeted about Hyderabad changing seasons in the day to say, "6-9 am: Winter, 9 am-12 pm: Summer, 12 pm-2 pm: Rainy."
