Hyderabad, May 31 (IANS): Heavy rain lashed Hyderabad and nearby areas as well as several other districts of Telangana on Sunday, inundating roads and low-lying areas and throwing traffic out of gear in the city.

Strong gales that accompanied rain uprooted trees at a few places.

South Hastinapur on the city outskirts received maximum rainfall of 61 mm. Several parts of the city received 20 to 50 mm rainfall.

Traffic went haywire in busy areas like Banjara Hills, Madan Tank, Mehdipatnam, Toli Chowki, Madhapur, Panjagutta, Ameerpet, Begumpet, Abids, Koti, Secunderabad, Uppal and LB Nagar as rain continued for two hours.

Teams of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation swung into action to remove fallen trees and clear stormwater channels.

Several districts in Telangana also received the pre-monsoon rain, providing much needed relief to people reeling under heatwave conditions.

According to Met office in Hyderabad, the rain in the state was due to low pressure area over south-east and adjoining east-central Arabian Sea and Lakshadweep area.

The trough from Chhattisgarh to Lakshadweep area across Telangana, Rayalaseema, south interior Karnataka and Kerala at 0.9 km above mean sea level persists, it said.

The low pressure area is very likely to concentrate into a depression over east-central and adjoining south-east Arabian Sea during the next 24 hours and likely to intensify further into a cyclonic storm during the subsequent 24 hours.

The conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of the South-west Monsoon into some more parts of south Arabian Sea, Maldives Comorin area, southwest and southeast Bay of Bengal during the next 24 hours, the Met office said.

It also forecast that conditions are very likely to become favourable from June 1 for the onset of South-west Monsoon over Kerala.