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

Rainfall data Jun2016 - Darjeeling and Sikkim Himalaya

The monsoons arrived over the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya almost 10 days late (14Jun instead of 05Jun2016), yet the first burst of rains after a drought-like situation brought in floods in many areas of Dooars and Alipur Duar.
Many parts of Sikkim received heavy rains leading to the dams releasing excess water on the Teesta and Rangit rivers - this would have contributed to the flooding in Jalpaiguri.
There were no major landslides in this region.

Rainfall data collection and preparation : Rohan Rao

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong,
 

STH activities : Mapping rainfall in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Since most landslides in our region are rain induced, it is vital to obtain and record rainfall data. STH has been acutely aware of this and rainfall data from 2009 for some of the major towns are available in this blog.
In this regard, what we found is that there is actually no shortage of rainfall gauges with most tea gardens having some sort of meteorological observatory and many government departments also maintaining precipitation records - however, gaining access to this data is a labyrinthine process, full of bureaucratic red tape (applications in writing, payment for rainfall data etc).
In this connection, many of IMetD's superb AWS stations are sadly not maintained and as such either give erroneous data or no data (and no amount of complaining to concerned authorities seems to set things right!)
To obviate this STH (along with a few NGOs) has decided to set up our own network of rainfall gauges in Darjeeling district and in Sikkim. Over the past 3 months we have procured 17 manual (Symon's type) rainfall gauges which will be positioned at various locations in this region. In addition, STH already has 3 automatic rainfall gauges available Darjeeling, Mangan (North Sikkim) and Kalimpong.

Therefore, for the monsoons of 2015 we will have rainfall data from 20 stations in the Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya displayed on this blog - it will be available for free and without any red tape.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong,
Dist Darjeeling