M A I N   N E W S

Deluge here, near-drought elsewhere
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 23
Fighting the flood threat, North Indians may find it hard to believe that cumulative monsoon rainfall for the country is five per cent below the Long Period Average. It’s largely because the rain gods have not been particularly kind to the northeastern region.

Most states in this region have received less than their usual share of rainfall this season, with Orissa and Jharkhand bearing the maximum brunt with 55% and 47% rain deficiency, respectively. However, the Met Department has predicted some respite in the coming days. “In the next five days, heavy rain and thundershowers will occur in dry regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and northeastern states,” says Met director BP Yadav says.

However, even as he tries to allay fears of drought, the statistics speak for themselves. While Bihar is reeling under the rain deficiency of 28%, the East UP is short of 43% rainfall. The deficit in Gangetic West Bengal, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh is 43%, 32%, 29 % and 17%, respectively.

“Coming rains will make up for the shortfall but not completely,” admits Yadav. It means that even with normal monsoon over next couple of weeks, the region may end up with 10% deficit this season.

Experts attribute the rain shortage in the northeastern region to certain weather anomalies in the Bay of Bengal. As per Yadav, no depression was reported in the Bay of Bengal in the first two months of monsoon, an anomalous feature that resulted in scanty rainfall in the region. “The depressions formed later were either too weak or in wrong positions,” he explains.

While rain-driving depressions were absent in the Bay, low-pressure areas came up in locations where they did not have enough carrying force to drive rains inland. In the meantime, Arabian Sea flows dumped heavy falls over the west coast and ventured into the northwest region, which normally gets rains from monsoon easterlies from the Bay. There they interacted with frequent western disturbances bringing heavy rains to Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and parts of Rajasthan.

What worked for the northwest was an active monsoon trough, strong feed from the Arabian Sea and some strong western disturbances, which interacted well with moisture-laden Bay winds. In the past five years, except for 2008 when the northwest received normal rainfall, the region has been largely running into deficiency.

The northwest recorded 10.2 % deficient rains in 2005, 6 % in 2006, 14.7 % in 2007 and a very grim 35.5 % in 2009. In fact, 2009 was particularly bad year for the country, the northwest in particular.