Dark clouds, showers make Pune cool

Pune: After days of scorching heat, Wednesday surprised Puneites. The city skies were filled with clouds. Some parts of the city even witnessed few spells of rain showers. Heavy showers near Lonavla disrupted traffic on the Pune-Mumbai route on Wednesday.
Areas like Maval including Lonavla and Khandala witnessed heavy rainfall. Thanks to the strong wind, a big advertisement hoarding fell down on Mumbai-Pune Expressway near Khandala which blocked the traffic movement for nearly an hour. 
The highway police said, “Following the strong wind in the ghat section, it started raining at 4.30 pm. Due to the rain, a container skidded near Khandala. Just before we could reach the spot, we got a call that a big hoarding had collapsed on the Pune-Mumbai lane.”
“The hoarding had blocked two lanes. With the help of a crane, we managed to take the hoarding aside and made the highway available for commuting. But it took more than two hours to normalise the traffic. Similarly, the traffic on old Pune-Mumbai highway was also disrupted after several trees fell on the highway. Fortunately, no commuter suffered injuries.”
In Pune, no devastating thundershowers were witnessed but some parts of the city including Kondhwa, Lohegaon, Vimannagar, Hadapsar and Pashan recorded few spells of rain on Wednesday. According to the officials of India Meteorological department, “There is a low pressure area across Marathwada upto interior regions of Karnataka due to which rainfall activity in western and central Maharashtra was witnessed. Though most parts of the city witnessed minimal rainfall, Lohegaon recorded 7 mm rain.”
Predicting the forecast, IMD officials said, “Pune and surrounding areas are likely to witness rain and thundershowers in the next 48 hours.”