New Delhi: The first pre-monsoon showers brought much-awaited respite to the national capital Saturday, bringing down the minimum temperature to 23.2 degrees Celsius, four degrees below the average for the season. However, commuters had to face traffic snarls in parts of the city with major roads choked due to poor drainage.

While the capital recorded 40.1 mm of rainfall in the last 8 hours, more downpour is expected during the day, a Met department official said.

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"One or two spells of rainfall are likely during the day. The skies would mainly remain cloudy," an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said.

Maximum and minimum temperatures will stay around 34 and 23 degrees Celsius, the IMD official added.

However, major traffic intersections in the capital witnessed traffic snarls during peak hours.

The traffic department reported tailback of vehicles at major intersections such as Azadpur, Moolchand and Indraprastha, among others.

"We have received complaints of waterlogging at Adhchini, Lodhi Road, Azadpur, ITO, ring road and Laxmi Nagar," a Delhi traffic department official said.

"Waterlogging and jams are there almost every time we have rains," said Vibha Lakhani, a marketing professional. "There is no reason why our municipal corporations cannot become more efficient and adopt modern technology to facilitate better drainage of water."

"The situation is slightly better as it`s Saturday. Even then it took me around 2 hours to reach Paharganj from Kirti Nagar," said Gurpreet Sodhi, who runs an electrical goods shop in central Delhi.

After experiencing a series of searing days, the pre-monsoon showers Friday evening brought down the maximum temperature to 38.4 degrees Celsius, two notches below the average for the season.

Humidity at 8:30 a.m. Saturday stood at a whopping 97 percent.

The met official said monsoon rains are expected to reach capital in the next 24 hours.

IANS