Weather Update: Several parts across India are likely to witness heavy rainfall in the next few days, with the India Meteorological Department predicting above-normal rainfall in July. The IMD on Tuesday issued red alert for rainfall in some parts of Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya.
The weather office has also issued an oragne alert for Bihar, Sikkim, Gujarat and West Bengal predicting very heavy rainfall over these states today. According to the IMD, extremely heavy rainfall is also likely in several regions of Gujarat including Saurashtra and Kutch over the next four days.
In Delhi, the weather office predicted heavy to moderate rain accompanied by Thundershowers over next one week.
Heavy Rain Lashes Gujarat
Heavy rain lashed parts of Gujarat for the second consecutive day on Monday, with Kalyanpur taluka in Devbhumi Dwarka district receiving 174 millimetres of rainfall in a 12-hour period ending at 6pm, officials said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued a 'red alert' for several districts till Tuesday morning, forecasting extremely heavy rain in Surat, Navsari, Valsad in south Gujarat as well as Jamnagar, Porbandar, Junagadh, Dwarka and Kutch districts in Saurashtra-Kutch region.
The IMD release said heavy to very heavy rain would lash parts of Gujarat during the next two days and an 'orange alert' has been issued for these districts for Tuesday and Wednesday.
India Could Experience Above-Normal Rainfall In July: IMD
The IMD said on Monday that India could experience above-normal rainfall in July, with heavy rain potentially leading to floods in the western Himalayan states and river basins in the central parts of the country. The weather office anticipated fewer floods in northeast India amid a prediction of below-normal rainfall in the region.
Addressing a virtual press conference, IMD chief Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said the July rainfall averaged over the country as a whole is most likely to be above normal -- more than 106 per cent of the long-period average (LPA) of 28.04 cm. "Normal to above-normal rainfall is most likely over most parts of the country, except many parts of northeast India and some parts of northwest, east and southeast peninsular India," he said, as quoted by PTI.
The IMD chief said the prediction of above-normal rainfall "certainly" indicates a higher probability of very heavy rainfall in certain areas. "Especially, if you look at states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir and the foothills of the western Himalayas, we are expecting above-normal rainfall activity," he said, as quoted by PTI.
"This is the region where you can have devastating impacts in terms of cloudbursts, heavy rainfall leading to landslides, floods, etc. Many rivers also originate here. In central India too, we are expecting above-normal rainfall in Godavari, Mahanadi and other river basins. So the probability of floods there is high," Mohapatra said.