Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Heavy rain alert : third week of Aug2014

Transcript (excerpt) of BBC weather bulletin of Monday, 18 Aug2014(23:57 UTC)
“The main focus of storms – north east India, northern parts of Bangladesh and eastern parts of Nepal.... The rainfall suppressed a little bit on Wed and Thursday but there are signs that we could see it (the rainfall) intensifying further and through the coming days, taking us into the week we could see as much as 90cm of fresh rain around this sort of region which will of course cause widespread flooding....”
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Excerpt from IMetD All India Weather Bulletin (19Aug2014-midday)
Meteorological Analysis (based on 0830 hours IST)
· The axis of monsoon trough at mean sea level runs close to the foothills of Himalayas.
· The upper air cyclonic circulation over northern parts of West Bengal and Sikkim
and neighbourhood has become less marked. However, a trough extends from Sub­Himalayan West Bengal; Sikkim to south Chhattisgarh across Bihar extends upto 1.5 km above mean sea level.
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Weather Warning during next 3 days (IMetD)
19 August (Day 1):
Heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur at isolated places over South Interior
Karnatak
Heavy rainfall would occur at isolated places over Assam; Meghalaya,
Arunachal Pradesh, Tamilnadu; Puducherry and Lakshadweep.
20 August (Day 2):
 Heavy rainfall would occur at isolated places over Sub Himalayan West Bengal; Sikkim, Assam;  Meghalaya,   Arunachal   Pradesh,  Tamilnadu;  Puducherry,  North  Interior  Karnataka,   South  Interior Karnataka and Lakshadweep.
21 August (Day 3):   Heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur at isolated places over Sub­ Himalayan West Bengal; Sikkim.
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Slide 1 shows past 7days of rainfall in India from TRMM.
Slide 2 shows potential landslide sites also from TRMM.

For anyone interested, the normal rainfall for the whole of July in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim is around 61cm. If the forecast is correct, this region could receive one and half times that rain (ie 90cm) in the next couple of days. 
This should be a cause for concern to all of us in the region and the intent of this post is to make people aware and prepared - without causing panic.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong,
Dist Darjeeling

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