Farmers in northern and northwest India should be prepared for winter crops-wheat and mustard damage because of unseasonal rain and hailstorms as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday predicted wet weather will visit north and northwest India for the next three days starting Wednesday (March 11).
The IMD has traced out the latest western disturbance over Afghanistan, which has induced the formation of an offspring circulation over South-West Rajasthan. “On Thursday, however, the western disturbance activity is set to hit its peak, due to which all of the north and northwest India and union territories will be under the orange alert.
The root cause of these weather conditions is a western disturbance that lies over Afghanistan as a cyclonic circulation. The westerly winds generated by this disturbance will be interacting with the easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal that will penetrate the plains of northwest India, thereby causing rainfall over the region,” the IMD said.
On the other hand, agriculture ministry officials said that unseasonal rains and hailstorm accompanying with high velocity wind has damaged the standing crops of wheat and muster in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand face the risk of hailstorms this week.
“The State Government has been asked to assess the damage due to winter rain,” said officials.
According to the IMD, isolated heavy rain and snowfall is expected over Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and Gilgit-Baltistan on Thursday, and over Himachal Pradesh on Thursday and Friday. Isolated heavy showers are also likely over Punjab on Thursday, and across Uttarakhand, Haryana, and Chandigarh on Friday.
Apart from these isolated heavy showers, the rest of the Western Himalayan region (WHR) and northwestern plains are likely to experience light to moderate fairly widespread to widespread rains between March 11 and 13, except Rajasthan, which shall receive isolated rainfall only. “Active western disturbances may take a break after this, and international models projected that the next big one may reach Turkey, Syria and Jordan by March 20. It would take four to five days for it to cross Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan before entering North-West India. In between, comparably weaker disturbances may chug their way into North-West India,” the IMD said.
Moreover, thunderstorms accompanied by lightning, hail, and gusty winds (speed reaching 30-40 kmph or more) at isolated places are also in the forecast for the WHR and the plains in the same three-day period.
A day later, on Friday, the orange alert will remain over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Uttar Pradesh only, whereas dry weather will possibly return to the rest of the states and UTs.