The Regional office of the Indian Metrological Department in Ranchi has issued a warning for heavy rains in Jharkhand in next 48 hours due to cyclonic storm ‘Komen’, which has lashed the coast of Bangladesh on Thursday owing to heavy rainfall in Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha and isolated places of Jharkhand. The deparment has also warned that the State will experience ‘heavy to heavy rainfall’ in next 48 hours due to depression over northeastern Bay of Bengal.
BK Mandal, Director of Meteorological Centre in Ranchi said that, “The cloudy weather will continue for next 48 hours which will be accompanied by strong winds and heavy rainfall. The deep depression over Bay of Bengal has led to the change in the weather. The heavy rainfall will be for two days and after that the weather will be back to normal due to movement of storm into depression and then into deep depression after two days.”
The weather department has forecast that selected parts of the State which are close to West Bengal will experience heavy rainfall in comparison to other parts of the state. High alerts have been issued in Ranchi, Ramgarh, Sahebgunj, Deoghar Bokaro, Dhanbad, Pakur, Jamtara, East and West Singhbhum, Kharsawa and Saraikela by regional IMD. The storm is centered 95km south-southwest of Chittagong and about 300km east- southeast of Calcutta and is moving with a fast speed toward Jharkhand.
“It is predicted that state will experience 60 mm rainfall in next three days. The weather is a partial effect of the cyclone and also it is due to depression which has been created in Bay of Bengal. Most probably, there is very little chance that the cyclone and rainfall will cause any havoc or any loss as it the partial effect of the cyclone,” said Chairman of Department of Agricultural Physics and Meteorology, Birsa Agricultural University, Dr A Wadood.
He further added, “The rainfall is out of depression so it depends on amount of rainfall received per hour. If we receive heavy rainfall in one hour in compare to same amount of rainfall received in two to three hours then it may cause problem. The rainfall will be ‘fairly widespread’ in the state in next 24 hours.”
“Excess of everything causes problem so if there is heavy rainfall than expected then problems like uprooting of shallow rooted trees, overflow of drains, stagnation of water in the state and problem in traffic may occur in the state. Although we do not have many rivers in the state but rivers situated in the north side of Jharkhand may pose some problems. As prevention is better than cure so we need to be alert,” added Dr Wadood.
The cyclone ‘Komen’ is the intensified form of depression which was created over Bay of Bengal. Komen is named by Thailand which means addressing with love.