Desert areas of Kutch, parts of Rajasthan face severe flooding as ‘exceptionally’ heavy rainfall continues to batter 3 states

Districts along Gujarat’s north and northeast, adjoining Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, received record rainfall as high as 340mm in a day. Some of the wettest areas were in Morbi, Vadodara, Anand, Panchmahals, Kheda, Kuchch, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Mahisagar where rainfall measuring over 200mm in 24 hours( exceptionally heavy rainfall category) was reported on Tuesday (See box below).

In the 24 hours ending Tuesday, Rakjot recorded 318mm, making it the wettest August day since 2014. The all-time record here remains the 354.3mm reported on August 11, 1979. By Tuesday evening, Rajkot had recorded 437mm in a span of 33 hours, making it an exceptionally wet day.

Vadodara Tuesday received the second highest rainfall in the past one decade, at 286mm.

Along with Gujarat, western Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are currently experiencing vigorous monsoon due to the presence of a deep depression over the region. By Tuesday evening, the deep depression was located about 120kms north of Ahmedabad.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) Tuesday said that the influence of this system will prevail over Gujarat, especially over the north and western coastal districts as it moves westwards through August 29. The IMD has issued a ‘red’ alert indicating extremely heavy rainfall (over 200mm in 24 hours) prevails over Gujarat till Wednesday and an ‘orange’ alert till Thursday. Kutch, Saurashtra and adjoining areas of Pakistan, too, will experience heavy rainfall during the next three days, the IMD has warned.

This season (till August 27), Gujarat has received 473.7mm, which was 32 per cent surplus whereas Rajasthan had recorde a whopping 52 per cent surplus rainfall (452.5mm). Overall, the all-India rainfall stood at 716mm, which was about 7 per cent above normal till August 27.

Another weather system, a low pressure area, persisted over Jharkhand and neighbouring areas on Tuesday which is expected to keep the monsoon active over north Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh till Friday. In addition, central and western India regions will be affected by the south-of-normal position of the west-end of the monsoon trough, keeping the rainfall activity steady through the week.

Along the east and northeast India region, widespread heavy rainfall is forecast till September 1. This will cover Odisha, West Bengal, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripur and Bihar.