Ongoing western disturbance activity over the hills of North-West India and upstream over Pakistan and Afghanistan is forecast to sustain scattered to widespread rainfall/snowfall over Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh over the next four days.
It would be isolated to fairly widespread over Himachal Pradesh and isolated to scattered over Uttarakhand from Friday to Sunday, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) update said on Wednesday.
Thunderstorms, lighting, hail
Isolated thunderstorm/lightning is likely over Jammu and Kashmir from Thursday to Saturday, and over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on Friday and Saturday. Isolated hailstorm is likely over Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, and over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on Friday. Isolated heavy rainfall/snowfall is likely over Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh and over Himachal Pradesh on Friday.
As for the South, the IMD has forecast scattered rain for Kerala and Mahe on March 1 and 2.
Residual rains over South
Areas likely to benefit are Mangaluru and Sulya (Coastal Karnataka); Kannur and Kozhikode (Kerala) and across the adjoining hills in Udhagamandalam (Tamil Nadu); Malappuram, Palakkad and Thrissur (Kerala) and across the hills in Pollachi and Valparai (Tamil Nadu); Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) and Nagercoil (extreme South Tamil Nadu).
The unseasonal February thunderstorms have ensured that the South Peninsula maintain and, in some cases, build on the surplus rain record right from January. Among states, only Telangana has run up a deficit (a large deficit of -75 per cent) after it was left outside the footprint of the February thunderstorms.
Large rainfall deficit
East and North-East drew a blank right through January and February with the lowest deficit on record being -49 per cent in Sikkim. It was highest in Meghalaya (-97 per cent), followed by Bihar (-96 per cent); West Bengal (-95 per cent) and Mizoram (-90 per cent).
North-West fared hardly any better with five states recording large deficits (60-99 per cent); two with medium deficits (20-59 per cent) and just three states recording normal (-19 to 19 per cent) rainfall. Central India has been comparatively better with only one state with large deficit and two with medium deficit. The cumulative deficit for the country as a whole is 30 per cent as on date (January 1-February 24).
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.