Odisha's several districts likely to receive heavy rainfall for four days from June 19: IMD

BHUBANESWAR:  Many districts of the State are likely to witness heavy rainfall over the next four days with the southwest monsoon’s flow towards Odisha set to strengthen from Monday onwards, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday.

Heavy rainfall is likely to occur at one or two places in Cuttack, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Dhenkanal, Kandhamal and Ganjam districts, and light to moderate rainfall or thunderstorms activity is expected at many places in the State on Monday. The regional Met office has forecast thunderstorms with lightning at isolated places in Nayagarh, Khurda, Puri, Cuttack, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, Balasore and 10 other districts during the same period.

Heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur at one or two places in Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Mayurbhanj districts, and heavy rainfall is expected at isolated places in Dhenkanal, Angul, Boudh and Sambalpur districts on Tuesday, the national weather forecaster said.

“As monsoon flow is expected to strengthen this week, rainfall activity will increase substantially with heavy showers predicted in many pockets between Monday and Thursday,” said Bhubaneswar Meteorological Centre scientist, Umasankar Das. The Met Office said the rainfall activity occurred just on time which will help farmers in sowing the crops. Lack of monsoon showers had left the farmers worried with a rainfall deficit of a whopping 80 per cent between June 1 and 14. 

However, due to the rains in the last five days, the deficit has come down to 57 per cent. The experts also said a weather system may develop in the coming days and if it does, rainfall activity will intensify.  In the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Sunday, Athagarh recorded maximum rainfall of 90 mm, Parjang and Burla received 80 mm each.