The rain deficit figures are hopping around like a batsman caught wrong-footed on a green top. While the deficit was measured at 53 per cent at this time last month, heavy downpour over the past week pulled it down to just 1 per cent below normal as of Tuesday.

But the lack of rain today, and little chance of showers over the next few days, would raise the deficit again, says the weatherman.

On Wednesday, for instance, the rainfall deficit is expected to shoot up two percentage points: to 3 per cent below normal.

The normal rainfall between June 1, when monsoon arrived in Delhi, till Tuesday (September 15) was supposed to be 597 millimetres, and the actual rain recorded was 588 mm. By Wednesday (September 16), though, the average rainfall should have been 604 mm — therefore the 3 per cent deficiency, says the officer on duty at Safdarjung Meteorological Department.

“The deficiency will keep increasing in this manner over the next few days,” the official says. An official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) says the coming dry phase would also push up the mercury, though not to peak-summer proportions. “The temperature will remain around the 37-degree mark,” the official says.