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

STH activities: With team from IIIT (Hyd) for installing Real Time Monitoring Sensors for Landslide Prediction (11-14Jun2017)

The CHIBO- PASHYOR landslides on the western face of Kalimpong have been featured many times on this blog, primarily because they are a major source of instability in the vicinity of Kalimpong town.
Six sensors, an AWS and a data logger (see this link) which automatically monitor slope failure and also  remotely measure and transmit rainfall and soil moisture data have been installed at the most unstable part of the landslide area.
This was done by three young researchers from IIIT (Hyd) who were in Kalimpong from the 11-14Jun2017. STH which has been associated with IIIT in their previous visit worked closely with the 3 researchers for selecting the sites for sensor placement and also liaising with the local people for security of the equipment.
On successful completion of  the 2yr project, IIIT hopes to develop landslide prediction equipment which could give early warning on landslides, based on rainfall thresholds and slope movement.
Will be posting co-ordinates of the sensor, datalogger locations shortly.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya