Thunderstorms offer N-W India a respite from heat wave

Heat wave conditions in North-West India have momentarily abated, with thunderstorms lining up over the plains in the region, even as pockets in the eastern parts of the country were scorched by high temperatures.

Heavy to very heavy rain has been lashing the North-East with the ‘Kal Baisakhi’ season announcing its arrival, as is usual for this time of the year.

Elsewhere in the country, pre-monsoon weather seems to have set in, with typically conducive atmospheric formations linking the North with the South to trigger gusty winds and thundershowers at a number of places.

The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction has said that the thundershower regime over North-West India would become better organised and widespread into the second week of May.

The Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services, too, extended a similar outlook.

None of the geographical regions in the country is forecast to suffer from a rain deficit during the first two weeks of the month.

Both agencies are of the view that the busy ‘Kal Baisakhi’ season across the North-Eastern States would continue to hold during this period, with thundershowers acquiring ferocity during the latter half.

An India Met Department (IMD) update said that thunderstorms continued to lash Uttarakhand, Bengal, Sikkim, and South Interior Karnataka until Thursday afternoon. Extremely heavy rain occurred over Meghalaya and Assam, with Cherrapunji recording 33 cm during the 24 hours ended Thursday morning.

Forecasts suggest this trend will continue over the region varyingly into the next two weeks as well.

The maximum temperatures were appreciably above normal at many places over Odisha and Rayalaseema, and at isolated places over Bengal, Sikkim, Telangana, South Interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the cumulative rain for the country as a whole from March shows a 4 per cent surplus with Tripura (+129 per cent) and Bihar (+103 per cent) leading the chart of eight States in the ‘large excess’ category.

All the States with excess rain are from the East and North-East of the country, while the ‘large deficit’ was centred over the West and adjoining Central India.

Those with the worst rain record included Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Comparatively less deficit was reported from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

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