Heavy rainfall: IMD issues red alert for Assam, Meghalaya over two days

GUWAHATI: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red alert for Assam and Meghalaya for the next two days as extremely heavy rainfall has been predicted for these two places. A red alert has also been issued for Arunachal Pradesh as well for Saturday as the monsoon has covered the entire northeastern region.
A red alert from the IMD is a warning for disaster management agencies to be on their toes and take action to prevent possible eventualities due to excess rainfall.
In its special weather bulletin on Thursday, the IMD stated that an east-west trough runs from southeast Uttar Pradesh to Manipur across Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Assam and Meghalaya at 0.9 km above the mean sea level. A trough also runs from sub-Himalayan West Bengal to interior Odisha at 1.5 km above the mean sea level. Due to the existing weather systems, the Met office has said fairly widespread to widespread rainfall, accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning and heavy to very heavy with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places, is very likely over the northeastern states from June 9 to June 13.
While issuing the red alert the IMD warned of light to moderate rainfall at most places in Assam and Meghalaya with isolated heavy to very heavy with extremely heavy rainfall. Similar will be the rainfall intensity in Arunachal on Saturday.
The IMD data stated that on Thursday, Meghalaya received large excess rainfall with a departure of 110% above normal. At 55% departure from normal, Arunachal experienced excess rainfall, whereas Assam experienced rainfall in the normal range (10% departure). At 54% departure above normal, Nagaland too experienced excess rainfall on Thursday. On the other hand, rainfall was largely deficient in Mizoram (-66%) and Tripura (-82%) during the day.
Ever since the beginning of the monsoon season on June 1, the IMD data shows that Meghalaya has recorded large excess rainfall (89% above normal), while Nagaland received rainfall in excess category (44% above normal). During the period, Arunachal experienced (6% above normal) and Assam (-4% from normal) rainfall. Manipur (-53%), Mizoram (-43%) and Tripura (-49%) have experienced deficit rainfall between June 1 and 9.