Hyderabad: Weather in Hyderabad continues to puzzle the people by moving from one extreme to another. After scorching summer heat for several weeks that saw temperatures soar to 44 degrees Celsius — 5 degrees above normal — the city experienced another freak phenomenon this week.

Citizens woke up in the wee hours of Friday to a ferocious thunderstorm and one of the heaviest rainfalls in over a decade. Powerful winds uprooted trees, electricity poles and hoardings, shook homes and caused extensive damage to the properties all over the city as well as in several other districts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The death toll in the region was two at the time of writing this report.

Hyderabad recorded heavy rainfall of 74.55mm in less than four hours, breaking a record of a decade, in May. Before this, the city’s highest rainfall on record — 28.5mm — was on May 9, 2006, private weather monitor Skymet Weather said. This morning’s rainfall was also very close to the all-time high rainfall of 79.3mm, recorded on May 24, 1978.

With the city experiencing rain for the past five days, temperatures have dropped significantly. It recorded a minimum temperature of 18.3C, 8 degrees below normal for this season, while the maximum temperature was 5 degrees below normal at around 35C.

Several parts of the city and other districts were plunged into darkness as the winds disrupted the power supply system, and teams were working to restore electricity to homes. Traffic was also thrown out of gear in busy areas as trees fell onto roads and rain water turned the roads and traffic junctions into the water pools. Hyderabadis witnessed the sky rumble with thunder and lightening for a very long time. “This was like somebody switching off and on a gigantic light. I have never seen such a sight in my life,” said Syed Rafeeq in his sixties, a city resident.

The weather office in Hyderabad said that the thunderstorm and gale winds were result of an upper trough prevailing from Vidarbha in Maharashtra to Karnataka, Telangana, Rayalaseema and Tamil Nadu. Thunder and rains are likely to continue over Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for the next three days, the weather office said.

It added that intermittent rains were likely to continue in different parts of the city until this evening.

In many areas of the city proper and it’s outskirts, drains overflowed hampering traffic flow. Secunderabad, LB Nagar, Miyapur, Madhapur, Hayatnagar, Gachibowli, Rayadurg, Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Masab Tank, Mehdipatnam, Musheerabad, Kavadiguda were among the areas badly hit by the winds and the rains. Water also entered several apartments and caused some damage to parked vehicles.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner B Janardhan Reddy held a tele conference with officials and asked them to expedite the relief operations, to pump out the water from the low-lying areas.

Due to the heavy rains in Nalgonda district, railway tracks were damaged near Valigonda, and a Delta passenger train going to Secunderabad had to be cancelled.

Nizamabad and Karimnagar in north Telangana region were also badly hit, 150 quintals [15,000kg] of rice kept in Manthani market were damaged by rain. Many areas in Nizamabad city were also without power. Thatched houses in the districts had their roofs blown away as well.

In Andhra Pradesh, heavy rains and thunder lashed Krishna, East and West Godavari, Guntur and Prakasam districts and Chittoor and Anantapur in Rayalaseema region, uprooting trees and electricity poles and damaging mango trees and crops.

Normal life was hit badly in the makeshift Andhra capital, Vijayawada. Rain water clogged roads and entered low-lying areas. Two persons died in rain-related mishaps in Andhra Pradesh. While one died when hoarding fell down in Tadepally in Guntur district, another person died due to electrocution when an electric wire fell on him in Chittoor.

In Anantapur 20 sheep died due to lightening.