Weather Event : Hail storm in Darjeeling (31Mar2016)

In Kalimpong, where STH is based, the cumulonimbus clouds (top slide) brought in grouchy weather with a lot of lightning and thunder but surprisingly little rain.
IMetD has a weather warning in place for TS (Thunder Showers) and Hail for this region.
Though much of the chatter on social media was on how beautiful Darjeeling looked and ice-skating in Chowrasta, Darjeeling - what was missed was the damage to tin-roofed homes, the traffic jam in Darjeeling town when the schools gave over at around 3pm and perhaps the damage in the rural areas, which is not known at all.

Precipitation in Darjeeling : As per reports, 6" of hail along with 45mm of rain
                                       (between 1.30pm- approx 3.00pm)
Rain in Kalimpong : 3.8mm (between 1pm-3pm)
Rain in Kurseong : 16.6mm

Photo credits :
Compuset, Darjeeling
The Darjeeling Chronicle

Monsoon withdrawal dates and why it is raining in the Darjeeling-Sikkim region

As per IMetD the 'well marked low pressure has now moved to north Odisha adjoining Gangetic W Bengal and Jharkhand' resulting in the tremendous moisture incursion over our area (region 5 - see below) and the rain.
We are nearing the end of the monsoons and the earth is saturated with water; in this situation heavy, continuous rainfall as predicted by IMetD (see warning chart below) is certainly not good news.
Unfortunately, despite repeated  letters to concerned authorities many of the IMetD AWS/ARG stations are either unserviceable or give erroneous readings as such it is difficult to obtain the correct overall picture of precipitation in the area.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong,
Dist Darjeeling

Heavy rain alert 22Aug2014 : more rain due

Excerpt from IMetD All India Weather Bulletin of Thursday (21Aug2014 - night) Meteorological Analysis (based on 1730 hours IST)

- The axis of monsoon trough at mean sea level continues to run close to the foothills
of Himalayas.
- The trough extends from Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim to northeast Bay
of Bengal across Bangladesh between 2.1 and 4.5 km above mean sea level persists                           
                        _________________________________________
All this, in short means, is that a band of low pressure is almost stationary over the Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya and is resulting in continuous moisture feed to this area - which means more heavy rain in this region. 

The clouding in the IR satellite imagery of 0500h IST is consistent with this and at 0630h (22Aug2014) it is raining  cats and dogs here in Kalimpong.

Praful Rao,

Kalimpong,

Dist Darjeeling

STH Stormwatch : Updates on DEEP depression in the Bay of Bengal

Source : JTWC and IMetD

Praful Rao
Kalimpong,
District Darjeeling