Rainfall data of August 2023 of some towns in the Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya

 

The sudden bursts of very heavy rainfall is becoming a worrisome trend and has been covered elsewhere in this blog ( 01August, 09August,25August,29August). Even though satellite cloud imagery, NOWCASTs, DAMINI app all give us a measure of early warning which was not available earlier, the pathetic condition of our drainage systems are unable to quickly channelize these huge volumes of fast flowing water. The result is obviously erosion and landslides. 

Where and how much did it rain in August 2023?

The heaviest rainfall was obviously over the foothills of the Himalayas, where the monsoon currents first collide with the the mountains

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

Rainfall data of some towns in the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya - July2020

In July, rainfall in our region during the SW Monsoon (Jun-Sep) peaks - and peak it did this year. Except for W Sikkim, Darjeeling and Sikkim had excess rain in July2020, caused by a rather frequent movement of the monsoon trough towards the foothills of the Himalayas.

July ended up being a very 'WARNED' month, with RED WARNINGS for heavy rain being issued thru much of the month

Numerous landslides were reported in our WHATS APP group (HAZARD ALERTS) and some have been documented in this blog (here 1 and 2 ) - we are still in the process of collecting data on many more of the landslides which have taken place.

The REALLY heavy rainfall however, took place along the foothills of the Dooars and Bhutan and the plains of North Bengal
Some heavy rainfall data from the foothills and plains:
305.6mm - Alipur Duar (02Jul), 116.8mm - Siliguri (03Jul), 213.4mm - Samsing (10Jul),
245mm - Jholung (10Jul), 165.1mm- Rongo (11Jul), 237.7mm- Siliguri (12Jul),
463.4mm - Gazoledoba (12Jul), 345.4mm- Alipur Duar (12Jul), 230mm -Bagrakot (28Jul)

A milestone event in all this gloom, was the activation of 3 DAVIS AWS stations at Kalimpong, Gangtok and Darjeeling where weather and rainfall data is available in real - time from the stations
A fourth AWS is now at Kurseong and should be active soon

My thanks to Ms Shreya Gurung for maintaining the rainfall records.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Rainfall data of Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya - Apr2017

Synopsis of April weather.
We had the first cyclone of the year (Maarutha) brewing up in the Bay on 16Apr2017 but as predicted it affected Myanmar and a few north eastern states.
We had quite of lot of hailstorm activity in the region but no major damage was reported. We also published a mid-month bulletin on precipitation here.
A major landslide in Shimla caused quite a lot of sensation since a detailed video was uploaded on Youtube.

All maps are from IMD.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya