India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday issued a ‘Red Alert’ for East Vidarbha on July 19 as a few isolated places will witness heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy rainfall between July 19 and 20. According to Weather Department, heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely at a few isolated places, extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places, and thunderstorm accompanied with lightning are likely to occur over Bhandara, Gondia, Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts of Vidarbha on July 19. Similarly, heavy to very heavy rainfall and thunderstorm accompanied with lightning is very likely to occur at a few places over Nagpur, Amravati, and Wardha districts on Friday. While the Weather Department has issued an ‘Orange Alert’ for July 19 and 20 for East Vidarbha, other parts of Vidarbha will also receive isolated moderate to heavy rains till July 20.

 

“A low-pressure area has formed over West central and adjoining Northwest Bay of Bengal (BoB). It is likely to become more marked and move northwestwards towards Odisha coasts during next 2-3 days,” stated a pressnote issued by IMD on Thursday. It also mentioned that the monsoon trough at mean sea level now passes through Jaisalmer, Kota, Guna, Mandla, Pendra Road, Gopalpur and then southeastwards to the centre of the low pressure area over West central and adjoining Northwest Bay of Bengal and extends upto 1.5 km above mean sea level.

 

Due to all these weather advancements the activation of monsoon rains happened in all of Vidarbha since Wednesday and it will continue till Sunday. After good rains on Wednesday, most of the parts of Vidarbha were dry on Thursday. Due to dry weather on Thursday, the day temperature of Nagpur increased by 1.6C in last 24 hours. The people heaved a sigh of relief in the evening when Nagpur received moderate patchy rains. Due to rains water logging took place and power cut was also observed in some places. On Thursday, Amravati received the highest 8 mm rainfall followed by Gadchiroli (5 mm), Bhandara (1 mm), Gondia (1 mm) and Nagpur (0.4 mm). Other places in Vidarbha were dry. Akola recorded the highest maximum temperature with 33.5C. Nagpur (33.4C) and Gondia (33.2C) also recorded the maximum temperature over 33C on Thursday. Remaining places in Vidarbha reported the maximum temperature above 30C mark.