Chandigarh, June 18, Intermittent spells of moderate to heavy rain Saturday morning, accompanied by strong winds and thunder, brought welcome relief from summer heat to Chandigarh and its surrounding areas.

Heavy rains lashed Chandigarh and various parts of Punjab and Haryana Saturday morning, bringing down the mercury in this region.

Chandigarh recorded a minimum temperature of 22.2 degrees Celsius Saturday morning, which was five notches below normal. Besides, this centrally administered city recorded a rainfall of 36.2 mm in the last 24 hours.

"We had light rainfall in various parts of this region Friday night and heavy showers this morning. This trend is going on for the last couple of days. Whenever mercury starts soaring, we have rainfall to bring it down. This is due to the movement of western disturbances over this region," a met official told IANS here.

"We are expecting similar conditions to continue for the next four-five days. Though this is not unusual, the frequency of showers has increased in June this time. We are expecting the actual monsoon to arrive in this part of the country by the end of this month," he added.
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Punjab's Amritsar city recorded a minimum temperature of 23.4 degrees Celsius Saturday morning while Patiala (12.6 mm rainfall) and Ludhiana (27.6 mm rainfall) settled at a low of 23.3 and 21.7 degrees Celsius, respectively.

In Haryana, Ambala received heavy rainfall of 63.5 mm and recorded a minimum temperature of 22.8 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, Hisar recorded a minimum temperature of 27.1 degrees Celsius.