Incessant rain brings down mercury by 5 degree Celsius in northeast

GUWAHATI: Incessant rain has brought down temperatures by almost 5 degree Celsius in the northeastern states in the last 24 hours.
Even as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday issued an “orange” warning for Assam-Meghalaya for the next two days with warning of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, the region got relief from hot and humid conditions after the rain. An ‘orange’ warning is an alert for disaster management agencies to be on their toes.
At 5.4 degree drop from the normal temperature, Silchar recorded the biggest fall in temperature on Saturday, followed by 5.2 degree drop in North Lakhimpur and 5.1 degree slide in Passighat. The maximum temperature had gone up by five to six degrees in several locations a week ago, including Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Silchar and Passighat. The rain reversed this trend.
In Imphal too, the drop was by 4.8 degree Celsius on Saturday, while in Shillong it was in the normal range. Other weather stations where a departure from the normal was recorded on Saturday were Guwahati (-1.3), Dibrugarh (-3.5), Tezpur (-3.2) and Dhubri (-1.3).
“It’s a significant drop from the normal in the month of May. In the next four to five days, a similar departure from normal is expected as widespread rainfall is predicted over the northeastern region,” Sunit Das, a senior scientist at the IMD, told TOI.
Light to moderate rainfall at most places with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is predicted in the Assam-Meghalaya Met sub-division, with isolated extremely heavy rainfall over Meghalaya. The IMD warned of thunderstorms and lightning at isolated places on Sunday and Monday. The Met office issued a forecast of light to moderate rainfall at most places over Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall.