New Delhi, (Asian independent) Most of the time, excessive heat waves across most parts of India dominated the news in recent days and India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday just confirmed that April was the hottest in 122 years for northwest and central India.
But there was excess rainfall, especially in peninsular India leading to a large number of stations reporting heavy, very heavy and extremely heavy rainfall, much higher than any other year since 2018.
Describing the observed phenomenon in April and forecasting the outlook for May, IMD director general (Meteorology) Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said: “Even when northwest and central India were reeling under scorching sun, entire northeast India, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and some parts of Karnataka were receiving heavy to very heavy rainfall.”
The peninsular India received excess rainfall while the northeast received normal rainfall, however, there were spatial variations and the number of stations that reported heavy, very heavy and extremely heavy rainfall was way higher compared to previous years till 2018.
In April 2022, there were a whopping 131 stations that reported heavy rainfall (64.5 to 115.5 mm); 31 stations reported very heavy rainfall (115.6 to 204.5 mm) while eight stations recorded extremely heavy rainfall (more than 204.5 mm), the IMD data showed.
In April 2021, the data showed that there were 49 stations that reported heavy rainfall and just four that reported very heavy rainfall while none reported extremely heavy rainfall. In April 2020, there were 112 stations that received heavy rainfall and 13 that received very heavy rainfall.
In 2019, as many as 44 stations received heavy rainfall while 11 received very heavy rains. In 2018, 58 stations had received heavy rainfall while just one received very heavy rainfall. No station in all four years, i.e. 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 had received extremely heavy rainfall, the IMD data showed.
As reported by IANS, the first week of April had witnessed excess rainfall in Meghalaya with Mawsynram, Sohra etc., receiving more than 300 mm rainfall that time. Similarly, Kerala and Tamil Nadu too have been receiving more than normal rainfall this April.
