New Delhi ,June 6: The northeastern states have been enduring the pristine fury of mighty monsoons over the past few days, forcing people to endure multiple spells of intense rainfall. The states of Assam and Meghalaya, in particular, have witnessed heavy rainy spells that have kept the sister states continuously on weather alerts.
Now that the Southwest Monsoon embraced the Northeast region last week, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted more wet spells over the next five days at least.
Southwesterly winds have been delivering moisture from the Bay of Bengal to Northeast India, which is likely to be aided by a trough spanning over Uttar Pradesh-Chhattisgarh. These monsoonal factors will bring widespread, moderate rainfall and thunderstorms over the region, with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall over the sister states of Assam and Meghalaya during the next five days.
The TWC met team forecasts rainfall amounts of around 20-40 mm/day across northeast India, with 80-120 mm/day possible over Assam, Meghalaya, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim during the next five days. Similar conditions are also likely to prevail over Arunachal Pradesh from Tuesday to Thursday.
While Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura are only predicted to see thunderous fairly-widespread rains on Monday and Tuesday, conditions could worsen on June 8-9, when they will also see widespread rain, much like its sister states. The IMD defines fairly-widespread rain and widespread rains to occur when 51-75% and over 76% of available weather stations record a rainy event, respectively.
These conditions have prompted the IMD to put the complete Northeast region on a continuous ’yellow watch’ status (meaning ‘be updated’). Further, the ‘orange alert’ that has accompanied Assam and Meghalaya for the past few days will continue to hover over the states for the next five days and likely apply to Arunachal Pradesh as well from June 7-10.
Due to the early southwest monsoon onset and the continuous rains, most northeastern states have recorded normal to excess rains since June 1. Assam and Meghalaya (83 mm), as well as Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim (69 mm), have recorded an excess in rainfall. While Arunachal Pradesh (58 mm) registered normal rainfall, the N.M.M.T states (39 mm) have observed deficient rains since the beginning of this month.
Southwest monsoon covered the Northeast states two days ahead of schedule this year, completing its conquest on June 3. The monsoon only served to further intensify the tumultuous downpours that have been battering the Northeast state for part of April and almost the entirety of May, leading to persistent inclement weather conditions.
In May, East and Northeast India recorded almost double the amount of rainfall as any other Indian region (252 mm), recording a 34 per cent departure from its normal behaviour during the month, as per IMD data. This was also the cause of recurring floods in the region, particularly in Assam, where more than 30 people lost their lives, and lakhs of people were affected.
Source : The Weather Channel
