For a second year in succession, Odisha again topped the country in accounting for the highest deaths attributed to lightning. The State recorded a total of 132 deaths owing to lightning in a span of around 150 days (April, May, June, September and October) in the year 2016.
However, a matter of consolation for Odisha is that the deaths due to lightning were higher at around 240 in 2015.
The Indian Met Office has decided to put Odisha on climate change watch by labelling lightning as a ‘significant’ weather event observed in the State. And considering it serious, IMD Bhubaneswar since last year has been forecasting on a daily basis the probable districts likely to face lightning wrath for the aforesaid period.
As per State Government data, Odisha recorded around 30 lightning deaths this year during April and May. And most deaths occurred in northern and north-coastal Odisha. The danger still holds because the State sees over 60 per cent of thunder deaths taking place in August, September and October, revealed an IMD Bhubaneswar analysis on the pattern of thunder squalls in the State that covered a time span of around 30 years.
IMD Bhubaneswar Director Sarat Sahu explained why Odisha witnessing high lightning phenomenon. “Higher the mean day temperature, lower would be the atmospheric pressure, which would then trigger rainfall over a landscape if the moisture level in upper atmosphere is sufficient to aid the rainfall phenomenon. But abnormally-higher mean day temperature would then see a deep fall in atmospheric pressure, and such abnormal high-low changes provide a red carpet to thunder squalls,” observed Dr Sahu.
Is Odisha witnessing abnormally-higher mean day temperatureIJ IMD data for year 2016 reveal that lightning hubs in the State had experienced a maximum temperature anomaly in April last year to the range of 2 degree Celsius with respect to the average of 1901-2000 average April temperature during the heat wave period. Moreover, Odisha’s annual mean temperature anomaly in 2016 has been to the range of 0.5 to 1.5 degree C with respect to the average of 1901-2000 mean annual temperature. The inference is the State’s annual mean temperature rose by 1 degree C last year vis-a-vis the mean temperature for the period 1901-2016.
While a warmer Odisha leads to thunder squalls, a dwindling green cover provides the lethal edge to the thunder squalls. The reason: weather scientists warn that fewer green cover would result in higher concentration of dust particles in air that impede rainfall and heighten the possibility of intense thunder squalls.
An adequate green cover has a salutary effect on controlling both dust concentration in air and high temperature by restricting heat insolation (Sun’s heat radiation that reaches earth’s atmosphere and surface), observe experts.
The heightened lightning in Odisha indicates inadequate green cover resulting in higher dust concentration in air and the heating-up phenomenon, they explain.
Environmentalists, therefore, call for immediate integration of ‘lightning’ affects in the State’s Climate Change and Disaster Mitigation Plan to curb ‘thunder’ strikes.