RANCHI: The state is likely to receive heavy rainfall in the next three days, starting from Tuesday, in some parts and the IMD has issued a yellow alert since there are chances of thunderstorms on those days. “North-western and southwestern parts of the state are likely to receive heavy rainfall on Tuesday while the south eastern parts would receive heavy rainfall on Wednesday. On Thursday, northern, central and south eastern parts of Jharkhand will receive heavy rainfall. We have issued a yellow alert for all the three days as there are chance of thunderstorms,” the IMD said on Monday.
Despite the timely arrival of monsoon, the spatial distribution of rainfall has remained quite uneven in Jharkhand and on Monday, the state received 380.6mm of rainfall as against the seasonal average of 399.4mm, indicating a negative departure of around 5%.
The IMD said that the monsoon activity over Jharkhand is near normal. “Several parts of the state received light to medium showers during the last 24 hours. Hendegir in Hazaribag recorded highest rainfall of 113.4mm,” the weather office said. Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Daltonganj recorded 5.8, 8.8 and 2.2mm rainfall, respectively, while Bokaro recorded 64mm.
Out of the 24 districts, 13 are in the normal rainfall category where the deviation of rainfall is in the range of -19 to +19%. Four districts have received excess rainfall while seven are in the rainfall deficit category.
So far, Gumla and Chatra have received 33% and 35% lesser than average rainfall while the neighbouring district of Lohardaga recorded 63% excess rainfall. Dhanbad, Lohardaga, Koderma and Jamtara have received excess rainfall while Chatra, Godda, Gumla, Khunti, Seraikela-Kharsawan, Simdega and West Singhbhum are staring at deficit rainfall, which can lead to a drought-like situation in some places.
However, the rainfall distribution in the beginning of the month was quite even. On July 1, the state had received 34% excess rainfall — Jamtara, Palamu and Dhanbad being the three districts with the highest quantum of rain. But even then three districts — Gumla, West Singhbhum and Seraikela Kharsawan -- were in the rainfall deficit category. By the end of first week of July, the average rainfall of state came down but it was still excess by 18%. On July 14, eight districts were in the negative category while the state average remained at 4% excess rainfall.
