‘Monsoon season witnessed high impact weather events this year’

‘Monsoon season witnessed high impact weather events this year’

Pune: In the ‘End of Season report for the 2018 southwest monsoon’, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has stated that the monsoon season witnessed a very large number of ‘high impact weather events’, of which ‘floods’ were the most frequent and widespread phenomenon. 

The IMD also noted that almost all meteorological sub-divisions experienced one or the other category of severe weather events during the season.

The report also stated that during this season, 10 monsoon low-pressure systems, which included one cyclone, one deep depression, four depressions, two well-marked low-pressure areas and two low-pressure areas, were formed against an average of six depressions and eight low-pressure areas.

The report also mentioned that incessant rainfall, associated with the formation and movement of the monsoon low-pressure systems in the presence of strong cross-equatorial flow, often caused flood situations over various areas during different parts of the season. 

The IMD report noted that Kerala experienced one of the worst flood situations of the century due to frequent heavy rain spells and several extremely heavy rain events, especially during the first half of August.

Ahead of the monsoon current, severe thunder squalls affected parts of northwest India. Parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were also affected by severe thunderstorms and lightning during the second week of June.

Speaking to Sakal Times, Mahesh Palawat, Vice-President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet, a private meteorological service, said one of the reasons for the high impact weather events is climate change.

“One of the reasons for these increased depressions and other associated weather events is climate change and global warming. In the near future, we will witness more such weather events high in intensity as well as frequency, which will be due to climate change,” said Palawat.

He added that different systems were observed in the Arabian Sea as well as the Bay of Bengal.“This season, we observed that systems developing in the Arabian Sea moved towards Yemen and Oman whereas the systems developed in the Bay of Bengal affected the eastern coast, where states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were hit. In the future also, we may experience similar movements of these systems in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal,” said Palawat.

Impact on agriculture
The analysis of ‘End of Season report for 2018’ reveals that the rainfall is reasonably distributed across the country, barring east and northeast India.

The acreage data of the Ministry of Agriculture suggests that overall crop acreage during the Kharif season is higher by 2.6 per cent as compared to the highest ever acreage/record food production that India experienced during 2017.

The resultant acreage is largely manifested by the good soil moisture distribution across the country. Adequate soil moisture available over northern parts of India may help the Rabi crops during 2018-19, suggested the report.

Water storage
The report by the IMD states that the reservoir levels, monitored by the Central Water Commission (CWC) till September 30 this year, stand at 5 per cent higher than 10-year mean storages and 17 per cent higher than the storages of the corresponding period during 2017. 

It is to further suggest that current higher level storages are recorded after meeting the irrigation requirements of the season owing purely to the excellent spatial rainfall distribution across the country.


 

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