Rains over North to sustain as Met notifies fresh ‘low’ by Aug 6

The India Met Department (IMD) has now confirmed our projections about a fresh low-pressure area, the third on the trot in the current series, forming over the North Bay of Bengal by August 6.

This comes in the context of an immediate predecessor holding strong over the central parts of Uttar Pradesh, causing heavy to very heavy rainfall over Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

Heavy rain for North

A two-day outlook from the IMD indicates the possibility of fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy falls over parts of Uttar Pradesh.

Along with this, parts of Uttarakhand, Bihar and the northern-most districts of Madhya Pradesh may also receive fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls.

Widespread rainfall with isolated very heavy and extremely heavy falls is likely over Assam and Meghalaya, while it will be heavy to very heavy over the hills of Bengal and the North-Eastern States.

Meanwhile, the ongoing rainfall over Kerala also is forecast to continue during the same period. The IMD attributed the sudden burst of rains to “strong downstream wind convergence and conducive upper level features,” with some implications for the fast-filling hydel reservoirs in the State.

Foremost among them is the Idukki reservoir, the biggest in the State and also featuring Asia’s largest arch dam, where an ‘orange alert’ has been declared with effect from midnight on Monday.

An IMD forecast has indicated the possibility of heavy rain over several parts of the State until tomorrow. But authorities here say there is no need yet to panic over the situation in Idukki.

They have notified the inhabitants across a stretch of 100 metres from the channels/rivers scheduled to receive the dam waters should stay alert and obey the orders to clear off when needed.

‘No need to panic’

The quantum of rain and the level of inflows into the reservoir are being minutely assessed for issuing specific instructions to settlers in downstream.

The orange alert was declared when the water level at Idukki touched 2,395.56 ft by 5 pm on Tuesday against a full reservoir capacity of 2,403 ft, the first time ever in July.

This will be followed by a ‘red alert’ when the level reaches 2,399 ft, 24 hours after which the shutters of the adjoining Cheruthoni dam, the spillway for Idukki, will be opened. If this happens, it will be after 26 years.

The two earlier occasions when this was done are 1992 and 1982, both during the North-East monsoon that follows the June-to-September South-West monsoon.

CIAL better prepared

Meanwhile, the Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) has also taken all precautionary steps to prevent its runways getting affected due to the overflows from Periyar.

CIAL had the bitter experience of runways getting flooded in 2013, when the Edamalayar dam, 82 km to the North, spilled over from heavy rains, hampering flight operations for two days.

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