Freak weather results in significant rain surplus over North India

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 24

Many parts of North India, including Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, witnessed unusually heavy downpour and hail over the past 24 hours, resulting in not only a dip in temperature but also in the cumulative rainfall for the month of October being significantly above normal.

From October 1 to October 24, rain in Punjab was 264 per cent above the long period average for this period, while it was above normal by 136 percent in Haryana and by 69 per cent in Himachal Pradesh.

According to data compiled by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Punjab received 29.5 mm rain during the aforementioned period against the normal of 8.1 mm. Haryana and Himachal received 21.3 mm and 41 mm rain, respectively, against the normal of 9 mm and 24.2 mm, respectively.

The unseasonal rains over the past week have been caused by a Western Disturbance, weather officials said. Consequently, the day temperatures came down by a few degrees, which, coupled by snow in the upper reaches, heralded the onset of winters.

While most of Punjab witnessed surplus rain during this month, the districts of Patiala, SAS Nagar, Rupnagar and Moga remained largely dry, with the deficiency being as high as minus 89 per cent.

Similarly, in Haryana most areas received good rains barring the horizontal belt comprising Sirsa, Fatehbad, Jind and Panipat, where the shortfall ranged up to minus 80 percent.

In the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the source of several rivers as well as tributaries of the Sutlej, rains fared poorly in five districts ndash; Chamba, Hamirpur, Mandi, Bilaspur, Una and Solan.

The fresh spell of rain over the past few days comes in the wake of an erratic and extended monsoon, which had finally withdrawn from north India on October 8. In 2021, monsoon was surplus by 31.3 percent in Haryana, but below the long-period average by 4.2 per cent in Punjab and 9.4 per cent in Himachal.