Rainfall data of some towns in the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya - AUGUST 2020

 Surprisingly:

• Darjeeling town had less rain than Kalimpong town.
  
• Sikkim rainfall (all 4 districts) was much less than that of Kalimpong and Darjeeling.
  

The New Normal : Intense bursts of rain in overnight thundershowers

Graphs from AWS of SaveTheHills show the pattern of rainfall at Kalimpong on 05/06Aug2020 and 26/27Aug2020. In both cases, thundershowers commenced in the late evening or night and got over within a couple of hours with instantaneous rainfall intensities going upto 252mm/hr on 05Aug.

Did we have a cloud burst on 05Aug2020?
Even though we cannot prove it, I do believe we had one. Rainfall intensities reached never before levels of 252mm/hr and the event caused major damage to roads in Kalimpong and infrastructure in W Sikkim.

And it is not as if we have not had cloudbursts earlier

STH has already recorded the extreme rainfall events of AUGUST 2020 and their effects in earlier posts (see 1 and 2).

My thanks to Ms Shreya Gurung for compiling the rainfall data.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim HImalaya

 

Death in the Mountains (09May2017)

A thunderstorm in the morning of 09May2017 struck a huge region as can be seen in the satellite image below. In the Darjeeling-Sikkim region, the rainfall was not intense during the storm but associated winds at around 0900hrs IST, knocked down several trees on National Highway10 (NH10) which links Siliguri with Gangtok .
One of the trees crashed directly onto the driver's cabin of a truck plying on the highway at Melli, killing him instantly.
This is first death due to hydro-meteorological causes in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya in 2017.

Rainfall at Kalimpong on 09May2017: 24mm

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalayas