India sees one of wettest October months, gets month’s rain in 14 days

WITHIN THE first fortnight of October, multiple favourable weather systems brought 82.5 mm of rainfall over the country, 88 per cent above the Long Period Average (LPA). This was more than the climatological normal of 76 mm of rainfall for the month.

The country received 82.5 mm of rainfall during October 1-14 of which 58.5 mm of rainfall took place during October 6-12, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

October is the first post-monsoon month during which the southwest monsoon normally withdraws from the entire northwest and most parts of central India by the middle of the month giving way to dry conditions.

However, rainfall trends during recent years, including 2022, point towards a ‘delayed’ monsoon withdrawal because of which rainfall activity continues over north and central regions until the third week of October.

Due to such delayed exit, the onset of the Northeast monsoon over southern parts of the country also gets pushed beyond the normal date of October 21.

Since 1901, only 25 per cent of October months have reported an all-India rainfall of over 80 mm. The country saw its wettest October during 1975 (121.7 mm of rainfall) and 1961 (121.3 mm of rainfall), according to data from the IMD.

Likewise, rainfall of over 58.4 mm (346 per cent excess) during the fortnight of this month over the northwest India region is rare, IMD’s data suggests.

Northwest India recorded rainfall exceeding 50 mm in October only on 13 occasions between 1901-2022 (till October 14) and twice in this century (2004 and 2022).

The latest long rainfall spell — between October 7 and 11 — was associated with the cyclonic circulation in lower atmospheric levels emerging over north Madhya Maharashtra on October 7 and its subsequent movement over south Gujarat, northeast Rajasthan, south Haryana and Punjab.

This system attracted moist winds from the Bay of Bengal which interacted with the passing western disturbances, resulting in one of the wettest October spells over Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

“This interaction caused such an extremely long spell over northwest India, including Delhi-NCR,” said IMD in its weekly weather analysis report.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button