Ravaged by rains: Himachal, Uttarakhand to see ‘substantial decrease’ in rains from tomorrow, says IMD

Vibha Sharma

Chandigarh, August 14

As the rain continued to unleash havoc in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the IMD today said that isolated extremely heavy rains will continue over parts of two hill states in north India for the “next 24 hours followed by a substantial decrease from tomorrow”.

The weather office, which predicted heavy rains only for Uttrakhand on August 11, today said heavy to very heavy rainfall with extremely heavy falls were recorded at places in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the 24 hours that ended8.30 am this morning.

Meanwhile, Rishikesh (Dehradun) recorded exceptionally heavy rainfall—42 cm—during the period.

IMD prediction

The IMD has predicted light/moderate scattered to fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy rains over Jammu division for today. Rain-battered Himachal Pradesh will get rains today and tomorrow. Uttarakhand will receive rains till August 18.

“Isolated extremely heavy falls likely over Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh during next 24 hours and substantial decrease thereafter from tomorrow,” the IMD said.

There will be a gradual increase in rainfall activity over east and adjoining central India from today—August 14. “Subdued rainfall activity is likely to continue over rest parts of the country during the next 4-5 days,” it also said.

Location of monsoon trough

Heavy rains in the hills are due to the location of the monsoon trough along the foothills of the Himalayas. “Hence the southwesterly Arabian Sea monsoon winds are hitting the Himalayan foothills,” IMD officials said.

Currently the monsoon trough lies north of its normal position. It is expected to gradually shift southwards and lie near its normal position from August 18.

There is a cyclonic circulation that lies over south Bangladesh and neighbourhood in lower and middle tropospheric levels. A fresh Western Disturbance as a trough in middle tropospheric westerlies is running, said the weather office, which this year has been left stumped by the June-September Southwest Monsoon season on many occasions.

Notably, the IMD on August 11 had predicted “isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall” only for Uttarakhand. “Isolated extremely heavy rainfall can be expected over Uttarakhand during August 12 and 14 and subdued rainfall activity over rest parts of northwest India during next 7 days,” it had said

2023—year of surprises

The Southwest Monsoon springs surprises every year but the 2023 season has thrown its predictors into a tizzy several times,leading to a question mark over the IMD’s predictioncapabilities. Apart from the quantum of rains, the onset and progress have surprised the forecasters.

In the beginning of the season, the IMD had predicted 96% rains of the LPA in the country with the dreaded El Niño phenomenon affecting the second half of the four-month season.

For the northwest, it predicted “normal to below normal rains”.

The region, however, proved contrary, receiving excess and devastating rains causing flash floods, landslides and damage to infrastructure in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh in July.

So far since the beginning of the season in June, as many as 48 districts (7%) of the country, largely the northwest, have received large excess rains.They include two districts in Punjab, Chandigarh, eight in Himachal Pradesh, four in Haryana, eight in Rajasthan, two in Ladakh, two in J&K, Delhi, four in Uttarakhand, five in Uttar Pradesh and six in Gujarat.

As many as 109 districts in the country have received excess rains and 303 normal rains so far.

Ill-distributed monsoon

However, despite rain-triggered mayhem in many parts, one-third of the country continues to struggle withdeficient or no rains. As many as 240 districts are ‘deficient’ and 15 ‘large deficient’ rains as on date, as per the IMD.

The 2023 season has prompted experts to call for an update of prediction capabilities especially in the times of climate change, changing weather patterns and India’s close dependence on the seasonal rains.