Hyderabad, Apr 21 (IANS): Flights coming to Hyderabad from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Visakhapatnam were diverted to other cities as a thunderstorm hit the city and suburbs on Thursday evening.
Parts of Hyderabad and surrounding districts experienced light to moderate rains along with hailstorm and lightning.
While the sudden change in weather provided citizens relief from sweltering heat, the gusty winds also uprooted trees and disrupted movement of vehicular traffic at a few places.
The bad weather also forced the airport authorities to divert the flight from four cities.
Flights, which were to land at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), were diverted to Bengaluru, Vijayawada, and Nagpur, an airport spokesperson said.
The Delhi-Hyderabad flight was diverted to Bengaluru while the Bengaluru-Hyderabad flight was diverted to Nagpur. The Mumbai-Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam-Hyderabad flights were diverted to Vijayawada.
Kondapur, Quthbullapur, Jeedimetla, Dilsukhnagar, Chaitanyapuri, Abdullahpurmet, Kothapet and other areas received moderate rainfall. Several areas including Kukatpally, Hydernagar,Nizampet and Malakpet saw rains with hailstorm.
Rains also lashed parts of the old city including Barkash, Chandrayangutta, Falaknuma, and Bahadupura.
Hailstorms also led to traffic jams at a few places. Many areas in neighbouring Sangareddy districts experienced gusty winds with lightning. Motorists had a tough time in areas like Patancheru, Ramachandrapuram, BHEL and Ameetpur.
Rains came as a welcome relief for people reeling under intense heat wave conditions. Adilabad was the hottest place in Telangana with mercury rising to 43.3 degree Celsius. Nizamabad recorded maximum temperature at 41.9 while Hyderabad experienced maximum temperature of 40.2, lower than Wednesday's 41.4.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), a trough from Rayalaseema to south Tamilnadu is now running from north interior Karnataka to Comorin area at 0.9 km above mean sea level, which could trigger light rainfall and thunderstorms in some of parts of the state and areas across Hyderabad.
The IMD has also issued a thunderstorm and lightning alert for places including Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Adilabad, Nirmal, Medak, Vikarabad, Hyderabad, Mahabubnagar, Jogulamba, Narayanpet, and Kamareddy. The alert is for the next five days