After the scare, the storm that barely was
NEW DELHI: After attracting criticism for failing to predict the intensity of the thunderstorms and dust storms on May 2 that left over 120 people dead, largely in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, India Meteorological Department officials were left red-faced when the “thunderstorm and squall (with windspeed exceeding 50 km/hr)” they predicted would hit in Delhi NCR on Tuesday evening didn’t happen.
“The activity has remained restricted to the hill states, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand,” KJ Ramesh, director general of IMD, said. Higher reaches in Himachal Pradesh received snowfall while Shimla experienced a heavy hailstorm on Tuesday. Upper reaches in Uttarakhand, places like Badrinath and Kedarnath, where a pilgrim from Delhi died of a heart attack and nearly 400 were stranded, experienced snowfall on Tuesday.
Still, it was a far cry from the warning of squalls and thunderstorms in 13 states that IMD issued over the weekend, prompting schools in several states, including Haryana, to remain closed on May 6 and 7.
On Tuesday evening, IMD was predicting light rain and moderately strong winds. To be fair, IMD’s prediction of “very light rain, drizzle accompanied with strong, gusty wind’ in Delhi on Monday evening was borne out with wind speeds touching 64 km/ hr, but the skies remained clear on Tuesday. Based on IMD’s warning, Delhi government directed all evening schools to not hold any classes on Tuesday, but some overcautious private schools suspended classes.
IMD blamed unpredictable Delhi weather on a lack of clarity about how western disturbance over J&K and a cyclonic circulation over Haryana would impact weather in the National Capital Region. “The western disturbance started affecting the hills on May 6 and moved eastwards impacting the plains,” Kuldeep Srivastava, a senior scientist at IMD, said. “Himachal Pradesh can expect thunderstorm activity Tuesday and Uttarakhand for the next two days.”
A western disturbance, a system of low pressure bringing moisture from Eurasian water bodies, currently lies over J&K. This system is likely to weaken in the coming days; another western disturbance will bring a fresh round of thunderstorms starting Sunday, according to IMD.
Unusually warm temperatures in Rajasthan, the cyclonic circulation over Haryana and neighbouring areas, and the influence of moisture carrying western disturbance system led to the rise of a chain of thunderstorms that pummelled Rajasthan and parts of eastern UP on May 2. The weather agency faced criticism for poor dissemination of alerts. “It is a question of reliability; we should do some sort of reality check on how many times have the warnings come true” said Piyoosh Rautela, a senior official in the Department of Disaster Management, Uttarakhand.