This spell of intense weather follows a welcome boost in monsoon activity, which has successfully pulled the state’s seasonal rain deficit into the ‘normal’ category at 17% as of Tuesday morning. Alongside this, IMD also predicted scattered heavy rainfall across the state through August 23. With heavy rainfall forecast to persist across Uttar Pradesh, the India meteorological department (IMD) has placed multiple districts under red, orange, and yellow alerts.
A yellow alert for heavy rainfall has been issued for 11 districts: Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Kannauj, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar, Unnao, Raebareli, Amethi, Sultanpur, Auraiya, Jalaun, Jhansi and their surrounding regions. The deficit plummeted from 22% on Sunday to 17% by Tuesday morning, according to seasonal rainfall distribution data from the Regional Meteorological Centre, Lucknow. In the last 24 hours, the average rainfall recorded across the state was 19.5 mm. Bijnor recorded the heaviest rainfall at 118.6 mm, followed by Sambhal (102.2 mm), Prayagraj (73.4 mm) and Moradabad (66.6 mm). Seven meteorological observatories in UP recorded extremely heavy rainfall in the last 24 hours: Meja (Prayagraj) received 192 mm; Dhampur (Bijnor), 162 mm; Gunnaur (Sambhal), 150 mm; Koraon (Prayagraj), 126 mm; Ghorawal (Sonbhadra), 123 mm; Bijnor, 146 mm; and Nagina (Bijnor), 140 mm. Several other observatories also recorded significant rainfall: Chhatnaag (Prayagraj) 115 mm, Aliganj (Etah) 100 mm, Bilari (Moradabad) 97.4 mm, Phaphamau (Prayagraj) 96.8 mm, Sahaswan (Budaun) 91 mm, Sambhal 91 mm, Karwi (Chitrakoot) 92 mm, Khurja (Bulandshahr) 85.4 mm, Thakurdwara (Moradabad) 84 mm, Rajapur (Chitrakoot) 81 mm, Lalganj-Aara (Pratapgarh) 80 mm, Shahabad (Rampur) 77.3 mm, Chhibramau (Kannauj) 77.6 mm, Chandpur (Bijnor) 73 mm, Najibabad (Bijnor) 72 mm, Sahawar (Kasganj) 72 mm, Bhinga (Shravasti) 70 mm, Kanth (Moradabad) 70 mm, Prayagraj 69.7 mm, Fatehpur 67.4 mm, Karchhana (Prayagraj) 66 mm, Fursatganj (Amethi) 66 mm, Bilaspur (Rampur) 66 mm, and Chandausi (Sambhal) 65.5 mm.
This strong monsoon flow has resulted in active conditions across the state for the next two days. Subsequently, the IMD has issued a red alert for Wednesday, indicating a high probability of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in nine districts: Banda, Chitrakoot, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Sonbhadra, Mirzapur, Chandauli, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Mahoba and surrounding regions. An orange alert has been issued for Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Hamirpur, Lalitpur and surrounding areas, signaling a high probability of heavy to very heavy rainfall.
The western end of the monsoon trough has shifted north of its normal position towards the Himalayan foothills, running from Shahjahanpur and Varanasi through concentrated low-pressure areas in Jharkhand and on to the North-East Bay of Bengal via Digha, according to IMD. Due to this surge in monsoon activity, UP’s seasonal rainfall has improved, dragging the state’s overall deficit into the “normal” category.
