Shillong(Meghalaya), Oct 20 : In the midst of intense rainfall activity over Northwest, Central and adjoining East India, parts of Northeast India are now set to welcome heavy rains too.
As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), strong southerly/southeasterly winds blowing inland from the Bay of Bengal will bring wet conditions over the Northeast .
Accordingly, fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate showers, along with heavy falls, have been forecast over the northeastern states for the next three days. Isolated very heavy rains are especially likely to lash Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya on Wednesday.
In view of these predictions, the IMD has issued an orange alert (‘be prepared’ for rough weather) over the three aforementioned states for the next 48 hours. The other states in the region, viz. Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, will be placed under a yellow watch (‘be aware’ of the local weather situation) for this period.
Meanwhile, the adjoining states of Sub-Himalayan West Bengal (SHWB) and Sikkim will be in for even rougher conditions for the next 24 hours, for which they will be placed on a red warning (‘take action’ to protect yourself from inclement weather).
A low-pressure area over Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Jharkhand, coupled with strong easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal, will collectively dump isolated extremely heavy falls over SHWB and Sikkim on Tuesday, and isolated very heavy rains on Wednesday. Heavy snowfall is also possible in the high elevation areas (above 4500 m) of Sikkim, The Weather Channel’s met team has indicated.
The low-pressure system will also impact the neighbouring eastern states, most of which will continue to witness rough conditions until Wednesday, October 20.
Meanwhile, during the first half of October 2021, the entirety of Northeast India has recorded below-average rainfall. In normal circumstances, this period marks the beginning of the northeast monsoon season (also known as reverse monsoon), as well as the start of western disturbances’ arrival from Europe. But due to the late withdrawal of southwest monsoon, the former has been delayed, while the latter has only just begun from the previous week.
Between October 1-18, Arunachal (47.6 mm), Mizoram (46 mm), Nagaland (35.9 mm) and Manipur (27.8 mm) have all recorded ‘large deficit’ rain figures as compared to their respective averages, while Meghalaya (135.7 mm), Sikkim (102.5 mm), Assam (60.7 mm) and Tripura (55.4 mm) have registered ‘deficit’ precipitation in this period.
These below-average rains arrive on the back of a drier-than-normal monsoon season for the Northeast, which saw a majority of the regional states record deficit figures between June to September 2021. ( Source : TWC
