Taking Delhiites by surprise, dust storm and rains hit the national capital Friday evening throwing traffic out of gear due to waterlogging and fallen trees in some areas.

The city received six mm of showers in less than an hour till 5:30 pm, while the maximum and minimum temperatures were recorded at 33.5 and 21.8 degrees Celsius respectively.

The humidity was between 56 and 83 per cent.

The weatherman attributed the sudden rains, dust storms and hailstorms to ‘western disturbance’ which is also active over Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

The snowfall and rains in Jammu and Kashmir also added to the weather system over the capital, a senior Met Department official said.

Strong winds started blowing across the city at around 4:45 pm accompanied by hailstorm and rains as people started moving out of offices.

B P Yadav, Met Director, said that the city received thunder storm and rains in several parts of the city due to the western disturbance, a term used to describe an extra- tropical storm originating in Mediterranean that brings winter rains and snow to subcontinent’s north-western parts.

The Met department had on Thursday predicted that there could be rains and thundershowers in the city towards evening.

“It was dark like night by 5 pm and the winds were so strong that I could not walk. I could not catch an auto or bus to ITO from Connaught Place,” said Sameeksha Gupta, a student.

The Control Rooms of MCD received a number of complaints regarding waterlogging and uprooting of trees.

Traffic was affected on Najafgarh Road from Tilak Nagar to Uttam Nagar due to uprooting of a tree, a senior police official said.

The dust storm and rains also affected traffic in Connaught Place.

“I could not drive on the Outer Circle. Nothing was visible. It was a big ball of dust,” said Deepshika, working in a publishing firm, said.