IMD Sunday Sheet: Rajghat Dry, Airport 6.1 mm; East UP Isolated Heavy Rain

By Harsh Mehra7 min read
Photorealistic empty wet stone ghat steps and Banaras clay-tile rooftops under a grey overcast monsoon sky beside a wide brown river, no people, no readable signs
Illustrative image: Empty wet Banaras ghat steps and rooftops under a grey sky after IMD’s 29 August sheet logged Rajghat dry and put Sunday on scattered light-to-moderate rain.

Meteorological Centre Lucknow’s press note dated 29 August 2026 has put Sunday on a fresh state sheet: rain or thundershowers very likely at isolated places over West Uttar Pradesh and at a few places over East Uttar Pradesh, with a warning that heavy rain is very likely at isolated places over East UP. That warning is the new line. It is a state isolated-heavy call. It is not a Varanasi-only yellow.

Varanasi’s city forecast sheet, issued the same day, is the local product. In the past 24 hours the city recorded a maximum of 33.5°C and a minimum of 26.3°C. Rajghat measured 0.0 millimetres. Varanasi Airport, on that same city sheet, measured 6.1 millimetres. The ghat stayed dry. The airfield took the rain.

Sunday’s Day-1 box on the city sheet reads partly cloudy sky with one or two spells of rain or thundershowers. Temperatures are put at 32°C and 25°C. The district Sunday row sits with that wording: scattered places, light to moderate, not heavy. Anyone folding the East UP isolated-heavy warning onto Kashi as a city yellow is reading a state line onto a district that is not in the heavy box.

The Lucknow press-note table also prints a Varanasi Airport column: minimum 26.3°C, departure +0.3; maximum 32.3°C, departure −1.1; rainfall 6.9 millimetres. That 6.9 millimetres is the press-note AP column. It is not the city-sheet airport figure of 6.1 millimetres. The sheets cover different periods. They should not be added, and one does not cancel the other. For Varanasi-specific millimetres this morning, the city sheet is the one to carry: 0.0 millimetres at Rajghat, 6.1 millimetres at the airport.

Isolated rain in the west and rain at a few places in the east can still put a thundershower over the city. They do not convert Sunday into a Varanasi heavy-rain warning. The press note does not hang the day on a named low or a named trough. It hangs it on the East UP isolated-heavy line and a few-places East UP forecast.

The later days on the city sheet stay in the same family. They are not the lead. Monday, Day-2, is again partly cloudy with one or two spells, 33°C / 26°C. Tuesday, Day-3, holds 30°C / 24°C on the same spell wording. Wednesday, Day-4, turns partly cloudy without the rain line, 29°C / 23°C. Thursday, Day-5, returns to one or two spells, 30°C / 24°C. None of those later boxes is a warning box.

The realised pair — 33.5°C and 26.3°C — belongs to the past 24 hours on the city sheet. The press-note AP maximum of 32.3°C, 1.1 degrees below normal, is a different station-and-period reading. The minima line up at 26.3°C. Humidity columns and Lucknow’s neighbourhood forecast in the same press note are not the Varanasi clock.

A reader who treats 0.0 millimetres as citywide dry overstates the airport. A reader who treats 6.1 millimetres as the ghat overstates Rajghat. Both numbers are on the 29 August city product. The 6.9 millimetres sits only in the press-note AP column.

For a Kashi Sunday, the usable official line is the 32°C / 25°C partly-cloudy day with one or two spells, and a district row that stays light to moderate at scattered places. The East UP isolated-heavy warning is for isolated places over the east of the state. Rajghat’s 0.0 millimetres has already been logged. The 6.1 millimetres at the airport is the city-sheet rain that actually fell.

Sources and reporting

IMD Meteorological Centre Lucknow press note 29 Aug 2026 and Varanasi city forecast sheet of the same date.

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