Rainfall data of July 2024 of some towns in Sub-Himalayan W Bengal and Sikkim

IMPACT OF THE JULY 2024 RAINS AT TEESTA BAZAR:
Some young men at Teesta bazar had started a two wheeler repair business in this shop on the Darjeeling-Kalimpong road after they shovelled out all the sand and debris brought in by the 04Oct2023 disaster (notice the damaged ceiling fans). The rains of July2024 put an end to their business venture and dreams when the Teesta river, flowing in the vicinity and almost at the same level flooded their shop again during heavy rains.

Rainfall normally peaks in July during the monsoons after which the rainfall gradually declines in August and Sept with the monsoons normally exiting our region in October.
As is clearly visible from the top data, rainfall was heavier in the Dooars area and foothills of Kalimpong district (and Bhutan hills).
IMPACT
The amount and intensity of rainfall impacted road communication a lot with NH10 and the Darjeeling - Kalimpong road being closed OFF and ON thru the month.

Even Rohini road to Darjeeling from Siliguri was closed for some time on 02Jul2024

                                Landslide near Loreto School, Darjeeling - 05July2024

INFACT NH10, WHICH HAD CLOSED ON 01JULY2024, COULD NOT BE RE-OPENED FOR TRAFFIC UNTIL 31JULY2024 - WHICH WAS THE LONGEST DURATION THAT THE HIGHWAY WAS CLOSED CONTINUOUSLY EVER - ALL DUE TO THE TEESTA VALLEY GLOF OF 04OCT2023.

Landslide on NH10, at Andheri, near Rangpo on 16July2024.

A low pressure area in the Bay of Bengal which brought in a drier spell of weather in our region after the heavy rains in the first half of July2024.

My thanks to all our What's App group ('Hazard Alerts') members whose images and stories I have used in this post

Praful Rao
with
Yukta Acharya

SaveTheHills
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744

Rainfall data of June 2024 of some towns in the Sub Himalayan W Bengal (SHWB) and Sikkim.

Even though the SW monsoons set in our region on 31May2024, the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya started receiving significant rainfall only after the 10Jun2024.

IMD had issued appropriate warnings and press releases which attributed the heavy rain to 'a cyclonic circulation lying over northeast Assam & neighbourhood in lower tropospheric levels. and a trough which runs from East Uttar Pradesh to Nagaland'.

This weather system persisted for an inordinately long period resulting in a RED WARNING for heavy rain in our region which lasted for almost 10 consecutive days in mid Jun2024 and which caused a delay in the progress of the monsoons.
A senior meteorologist, I talked with said he had never witnessed this sort of phenomenon in his entire professional career:

Satellite image post in 'Hazard Alerts', our What'sApp group.

A typical rainfall pattern of thundershowers which are more often the norm in our region these days is shown below - these are sharp, heavy bursts of rain from Cumulonimbus (CB) clouds.

IMPACT

 

What is clear from the rainfall in June2024 is

• The heaviest rainfall took place in the plains of the Dooars with Alipur Duar clocking the highest rainfall.
  
• The foothills (Jhallong) also receive very heavy rain, some 4000mm annually and both our alternate roads (NH717A and the Gorubathan-Lava roads) to NH10 largely pass thru these foothills.
• Sikkim received more rain than Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts
• Even with this rain, many of our roads, especially NH10 are in tatters and unfortunately, things are not going to improve at least for the next 2 months or more - obviously, the Oct 2023 GLOF is the single most important factor causing this chaos.
  

While in the airforce many years ago, I was posted to Air Force Station Hashimara (which is very close to Alipur Duar) where receiving 200mm of rainfall overnight during the monsoons was not abnormal and the best part was NOTHING USED TO HAPPEN when we had such heavy rain. The river Torsa which flows close by never flooded and the drainage in the area used to swiftly take away the excess storm water into canals.
But we saw what happened in Mangan (North Sikkim), when they received 220mm rain on 12Jun2024 - there were many landslides, 6 people died and 1500 tourists were stranded in North Sikkim.
Bottom line: Our mountains are just too fragile and sensitive compared to the plains and we have to take care of them.

Praful Rao
with
Yukta Acharya

Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744

STH Storm Watch: Tropical Cyclone 04B in the north Bay of Bengal (01Aug2023)

 Whereas JTWC has issued Warning No 2 for 'Tropical Cyclone 04B (with tracks)' in the north Bay of Bengal, IMD still categorizes the storm as a 'deep depression' and the track is shown below:

In the morning, only an 'Orange' warning for heavy rain had been issued for S Bengal which has been upgraded at around 10.30hrs to RED warning for some areas of S Bengal and Odisha.

Updated track of the storm at 2pm/01Aug2023

Hope the storm intensity and rainfall remains within manageable limits, because the projected track passes over densely populated areas of S Bengal.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744

Extreme event in the Darjeeling Himalayas as it unfurls :14Jul2019

We, in the Darjeeling Himalayas have over the past 9 days been witnessing an extraordinary weather event.
a. A low pressure area between the states of UP and Bihar resulted in a sudden spurt in monsoon activity in the region with rainfall suddenly jumping from - 56% in the beginning of Jul2019

to where we received more than our monthly average of rain for July (average 615.8mm) in the spate of just 10 days.

b. This extreme weather event is still ongoing (see below)

and IMetD has clamped on a RED weather warning for this region for an unprecedented number of days in a row.
In keeping with the enhanced rain, we have had a quantum increase in landslide activity in the Darjeeling Himalayas:
  -    We have had 2 fatalities due to landslides directly and another 4 when a vehicle carrying tourists plunged into the Teesta river on National Highway (NH)10. NH31A also had landslides in July2019.
  -   NH10, an arterial road connecting Sikkim to the rest of the country has been blocked for the past 2 days and so have virtually all the roads out of Kalimpong towards Sikkim and the Dooars plains. NH55 which links Darjeeling to Siliguri is cut off at places and the services of the DHR have been suspended.
 -   There have been a spate of landslides all over the districts of Kalimpong and Darjeeling. We will be giving more details on the landslides in this blog.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya