Tuesday, April 10, 2012

STH Stormwatch : After a bone-dry winter, unseasonal heavy rains


After a bone-dry winter, unseasonal and heavy thundershowers dumped nearly 50mm of rain in a couple of hours. Drains blocked by left-over and discarded construction material resulted in storm water overflowing the drains and eroding the road which was repaired barely 4 months ago.
What is so pathetic about this story is that it is repeated ad nauseam all over the district (and maybe in most human settlements along the entire Himalayas) with no solution in sight.
As per the Regional Met Centre at Kolkata, the heavy rains was caused by an upper air cyclonic circulation over Bihar and adjoining Uttar Pradesh which is pulling in moisture from the Bay of Bengal.
The satellite IR image (of 0530 IST/ 10Apr2012) shows intense convective clouding over Darjeeling and Sikkim.


Praful Rao

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