Monday, June 28: Many parts of Northeast India, especially along the Brahmaputra River, are staring at a possible flood situation as water levels have breached the severe flood levels over the weekend. Adding to the woes, forecasts suggest that extremely wet weather conditions will prevail over the region this week.
The monsoon has turned vigorous over parts of Northeast India, and heavy rains, thunderstorms are set to batter the region throughout this week, starting Monday. An east-west monsoon trough is likely to persist this week and run from northwest India to the northeast Bay of Bengal. The system is expected to induce precipitation over the parts of Northeast India for the next three-four days.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) also forecasts strong moist southwesterly winds over the region this week. Due to these meteorological conditions, widespread rainfall and thunderstorms are possible over northeastern states and Sub-Himalayan West Bengal during the next five days.
Moreover, extremely heavy rains are expected to lash isolated places of the northeastern states during this week. Heavy to extremely heavy rainfall is possible over parts of Assam and Meghalaya from Monday to Wednesday. The three days total precipitation may reach up to 300 mm or more over these places mentioned above. After that, heavy to very heavy rainfall is forecast to prevail over Assam and Meghalaya on Thursday and Friday.
Likewise, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh are also expected to witness incessant heavy rains throughout this week. Besides, parts of Sikkim may see heavy to very heavy rainfall on Monday and Tuesday, followed by heavy to extremely heavy rainfall from Wednesday onwards.
Given these predictions, the Indian met department has placed Assam, Meghalaya, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim under an orange alert from June 28 to July 2. This level of advisory urges the residents to ‘be prepared’ for rough weather. Arunachal Pradesh is also under a similar alert on June 28.
On the other hand, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh have been kept under the yellow watch until July 2. The advisory urges residents to ‘be aware’ of the local weather situation.
On the flood situation, the daily bulletin from the Central Water Commission (CWC) adds that multiple rivers in Assam are flowing at above-normal to severe flood situations. River Jiabharali in Sonitpur and River Desang in Sibsagar have already breached the ‘danger level’ mark.
Despite the recent prevalence of wet weather over parts of northeast India, several states of the region have recorded well below average rainfall figures in the time frame of June 1 to June 27. States including Arunachal Pradesh (312.3 mm), Meghalaya (469.4 mm), Manipur (165.1 mm), Mizoram (294.7 mm), and Tripura (245 mm) have all noted ‘deficient’ amounts of rainfall in this period.
Meanwhile, Assam (326.9 mm) and Nagaland (213.4 mm) have recorded ‘normal’ precipitation figures between June 1 to June 27.
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