Mahabaleshwar records 60cm rainfall in 24 hrs, its highest ever
NEW DELHI: Mahabaleshwar, a popular hill station in Maharashtra’s Satara district located in the Western Ghats, has recorded the highest ever rainfall a 24-hour period -witnessing 60 cm between Thursday and Friday.
Recording 20cm or more in 24 hours is classified to be “extremely heavy” rain by India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Between 8.30 am on Thursday and 8.30am on Friday, Mahabaleshwar recorded rainfall which is three times that threshold.
Other parts of the west coast also recorded unprecedented rain and flooding during the past 24 hours . Scientists said recording such abnormally high amounts of rain in a short duration is an impact of climate crisis. But the impact of such prolonged and heavy rains is more over the west coast because of the ecologically fragile characteristics of the Western Ghats.
NEW DELHI: Mahabaleshwar, a hill station in Maharashtra’s Satara district located in the Western Ghats, has recorded the highest rainfall ever in its history with 60 cm in 24 hours. Recording 20cm or more in 24 hours is classified to be “extremely heavy” rain by India
Meteorological Department (IMD).
Between 8.30 am on Thursday and 8.30am on Friday, Mahabaleshwar recorded rainfall which is three times that threshold. Other parts of the west coast also recorded unprecedented rain and flooding during the past 24 hours . Scientists said recording such abnormally high amounts of rain in a short duration is an impact of climate crisis. But the impact of such prolonged and heavy rains is more over the west coast because of the ecologically fragile characteristics of the Western Ghats.
Mahabaleshwar recorded its second highest rainfall of 49.7cm on August 11, 2008. Its third highest rainfall of 48cm was reported on Thursday, July 22, 2021. Fourth highest rain of 43.9cm, was recorded on July 7, 1977. “Parts of the west coast have recorded very high amounts of rain continuously for 7 days. That’s a very prolonged spell. There were several landslides also reported. The low level westerly winds are very strong and low pressure area has also developed over northwest Bay of Bengal which has accentuated monsoon rain over the west coast region. We are expecting rains to gradually reduce from today over west coast but rains will pick up again over the Western Himalayan region from July 25,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, national weather forecasting centre of IMD.
A senior scientist at IMD Pune who declined to be quoted said the flooding over west coast is a combination of issues. “There is very heavy rain which is clear from the data but reservoirs and dams are also releasing water as per their standard operating procedure; rivers in the Konkan are flowing above danger mark. They may have swelled for manmade reasons also like encroachments on the riverbed in Western Ghats. It’s a cumulative impact. Mahabaleshwar recorded over 1000 cm of rain in 48 hours. Can you imagine the scale?”
A study led by Centre for Climate Change Research, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology published in Nature journal in 2017 found that there is a threefold increase in widespread extreme rain events over central India (from the west coast of Gujarat/Maharashtra to the east coast of Odisha) during 1950–2015.