TURA: It is finally official, the rains have failed in Meghalaya and Garo Hills!
What was for months being discussed about the reduced rainfall this season, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has finally given it in writing.
The IMD has, on Sunday, released data revealing that Meghalaya experienced a drastic 41 percent reduction in rainfall during the four month long monsoon season, from June to September, and the entire country a 9 percent shortfall.
As per the IMD report, the entire north eastern region failed to receive substantial rainfall throughout the four month monsoon season that led to the main cause for the overall deficit.
Garo Hills has been hit hard with weeks going by without any rainfall in most areas even though it was peak monsoon season. In July and August there were less than a week of heavy rainfall across the Garo Hills region.
One of the main reasons attributed for the deficit is because the weather systems that formed over the Bay of Bengal moved towards the central or northern India instead of also moving towards the eastern parts, leaving most of the eastern region and the north east with insufficient rainfall.
According to the IMD report, the monsoon also experienced a weakening after the middle of August making it virtually impossible to be revived to get a normal season.
There is a very major concern that the dry season coming up early next year could lead to a major water crisis and irrigation of crops could also be severely impacted.
To make matters worse, the large scale illegal felling of trees from reserve forests by timber smugglers has further compounded the situation in Garo Hills and across the state.
As per the IMD report, the top rain deficient states this year are — Manipur (- 59 per cent), Meghalaya (- 41 per cent) , Arunachal Pradesh (- 32 per cent), Gujarat and Jharkhand (- 28 per cent each) , Bihar (- 25 per cent), Tripura (- 21 per cent) and West Bengal (- 20 per cent). IMD has mentioned only Kerala (+ 24 per cent) and Sikkim (+ 20 per cent) under the “excess” rainfall category while all other states have recorded normal rainfall for the season.