The Beas River floods the busy Chandigarh-Manali National highway at Kullu on Monday. (Express Photo by Pradeep Kumar)
Widespread rainfall across the region during the past three days has resulted in excess rainfall in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh – more than the seasonal average. However, Haryana, as on Monday morning, was still deficit by 10 per cent of the average rainfall.
According to the official data, Himachal Pradesh recorded a seven per cent increase and Punjab saw a six per cent increase in the rainfall than the normal owing to the continuous rainfall of past three days. Chandigarh in the region recorded the highest seasonal increase of rainfall — 14 % surge to the seasonal normal.
“The rainfall activity will decrease significantly with effect from 25 September onwards over most States of region,” the Indian Meteorological Department said in a statement on Monday.
Punjab, which was heading towards the deficit rain till September 21, has not only received overall excessive rain but also received over 22% of the total monsoon season rain in past 48 hours. And 13 districts of the state have even got excessive rain against the seasonal normal.
Punjab’s average annual rainfall is about 650 mm out of which 480 to 490 mm falls during the rainy season from June to September months. According to the IMD’s Chandigarh Office, in past 48 hours starting from September 22 morning till Monday morning (September 24) Punjab had received over 112 mm rainfall across the state which is over 22% of the monsoon rain and over 17 % of the annual rainfall of state in just two days.
Till Monday morning, rain recorded in Punjab was 503.6 mm against the normal of 475.7 mm. Punjab had recorded 391 mm on September 21 morning against required 464 mm when the rainy season was left with just another one week in the state.
Around 13 districts of state received excessive rain which included Ropar with 61% excess rain, Tarn Tran with 54% excess rain, Gurdaspur 42%, Kapurthala 30%, Nawanshar 27% more, Ludhiana 21% more, Mohali 20% more, Barnala 17%, Patiala 16%, Faridkot 13%, and Hoshiarpur 12% more. All these districts have more than 50% of the total rice crop, which is down on 30.42 lakh hectares in Punjab.
Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Taran Tran and Amritsar recorded over 200 mm rainfall in the city during the 24-hour cycle till Monday morning.
Similarly, Himachal Pradesh had recorded 856.3 mm rainfall against the seasonal normal of 803.8 mm. Kalatop with 225 mm rainfall witnessed the highest 24-hour rainfall in the state. Dalhousie recorded a rainfall of 170 mm, Kheri 157 mm and Dehra Gopipur, Manali & Gaggal 121 mm each till Monday morning from Sunday morning, according to the IMD-provided data. The weather in the state is likely to improve from Wednesday, officials said.
Haryana also has witnessed vigorous rainfall in most parts of the state since Saturday. However, according to the data available till Monday morning, the overall seasonal rainfall was 401.6 mm against the seasonal average of 450.6 mm.
Assand in Karnal district recorded the highest of 160 mm rainfall, Karnal itself received 140 mm, Thanesar & Kurukshetra 120 each and Nilokheri in Karnal received 110 mm.