Reporting an extreme event (21March2013) : More rain in 90mins than the monthly rainfall of March.

Mar - May is technically the pre-monsoon season in India where we do expect thunderstorms associated with Cb activity and in Darjeeling-Sikkim we have been having sporadic rainfall along with thunder and lightning this month.
On 21Mar2013, however, the fast moving western disturbance seen in the IR image above, dumped 37mm of rain and lots of hail in approx 90 mins in Kalimpong.
Considering that the average monthly rainfall (taking data of 5yrs from here) for Darjeeling district for the month of March is 26mm, it seems incredible that yesterday between 3.00-4.30pm  we had more rain than the monthly average rainfall!
My deepest concern and fear in all this is whether we are prepared to face such extreme events which unfortunately becoming more and more frequent.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong