Weather: Western disturbances to drench parts of India for 5 days
New Delhi: India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast that parts of northern, peninsular, and eastern India will continue to receive heavy, very heavy, or extremely heavy rainfall in the next 5 days.
The recent incessant rains have claimed nearly 47 lives in Uttarakhand and 38 in Kerala.
Forecasting heavy downpour in Maharashtra, Odisha, and West Bengal, the IMD issued a yellow alert in several districts of Odisha and an orange alert for 11 Kerala districts on Wednesday.
The IMD said the sudden rainfall occurred due to an unusual western disturbance from the Mediterranean Sea that drifted towards the northern plains and the Himalayas and triggered extremely heavy rainfall, cloudbursts, and subsequent landslides in parts of northern India.
“This western disturbance also created a depression in the Arabian Sea, leading to rainfall and rain-related fatalities in Kerala. The low-pressure area that led to rains in Odisha and West Bengal is likely to move further towards Bihar,” an official said.
DS Pai, IMD’s Head of Climate Research and Services, said, “A western disturbance interacted with the easterlies to cause extremely heavy rain conditions over Uttarakhand.”
“There was a low-pressure area over Bihar that brought in a lot of moisture, as the western disturbance helped in cloud development and rain,” he added.
About the cloudburst in Nainital, he said, “Climate change has increased moisture-holding capacity of the atmosphere all around the world. So of course, climate change has a role to play, but also local synoptic features need to be considered.”
(Avya Mathur)
