New Delhi,  As Delhi NCR endured a torturous '40-feels-like 50' kind of temperature on Tuesday in wait of the illusive monsoon, an overcast sky in the afternoon raised hopes of showers but in vain, even as the IMD said the capital would witness rain starting from Wednesday evening.

"Delhi is likely to witness rain activity from June 29 evening, however, monsoon rainfall is likely to materialise between June 30 and July 1," senior India Meteorological Department (IMD) scientist R.K. Jenamani said.

With high humidity levels, morning had started on a sultry note. The sky was overcast at around 2.30 p.m. across Delhi and the IMD even issued a NowCast - forecast about weather for next three hours - that said: "Light to moderate intensity rain would occur over and adjoining areas of isolated places of west Delhi (Punjabi Bagh, Rajouri Garden, Patel Nagar), NCR (Dadri) Sohana (Haryana) during the next 2 hours."

However, at the end of the day, rainfall data between 8.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. showed that except the Ridge station, which had recorded what IMD terms as 'trace' rainfall, none of the stations recorded any rainfall.

Temperatures had soared to around 40 degrees Celsius across the national capital with Safdarjung, the base station for the city, recording a maximum temperature of 41.5 degrees Celsius and minimum temperature of 30.8 degrees Celsius.

Other observatories/stations in Delhi recorded maximum temperatures in the range of 39.7 degrees Celsius (at Mayur Vihar) to 44.2 degrees Celsius at Najafgarh while the minimum temperature ranged between 29.4 degrees Celsius (Lodhi Road) and 33.9 degrees Celsius (Najafgarh and Pitampura).

Meanwhile, in what can be termed as a good news for the northwest India, the IMD said, conditions are favourable for further advance of the Southwest Monsoon into remaining parts of Bihar, some more parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir during next 24 hours.

Conditions would (also) continue to become favourable for further advance of the monsoon into remaining parts of Arabian Sea and Gujarat, some parts of Rajasthan, the remaining parts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, some parts of Punjab, Haryana-Chandigarh and Delhi during subsequent 48 hours, i.e. between June 30 and July 1, the IMD said.

The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) continued to pass through Deesa, Ratlam, Shivpuri, Rewa, and Churk.