Tura temperature rises to 34 degree Celsius
From Cosmos Sangma
TURA: With Garo Hills experiencing unpredictable weather pattern for the last three weeks with soaring temperatures, extreme humidity and no rain, it reveals once again the truth that is hard to swallow about global warming and its impact.
The month of July was the hottest month ever recorded across the entire world, researchers from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced on Monday after compiling satellite data.
Globally, scientists revealed July to have been marginally warmer—by 0.04 degrees Celsius—than July 2016 which was previously the hottest month on record.
Just like the rest of the country, Garo Hills has also been impacted from the unprecedented warming.
In the absence of rainfall, temperature in Tura have risen to a high of 34 degree Celsius, while in the plains belt region, the sweltering weather has raised it a notch or two higher. The 90 per cent prevailing humidity has only added to the misery.
For the last three days, the temperature in the daytime has hovered around 34 degree Celsius while the lowest dropping was recorded to only around 26.5, data revealed.
The biggest worry has been the long dry spell at the peak of the Monsoon season.
Though the first week of July experienced a substantial amount of rainfall in the region, even overtaking last year’s entire month of rainfall, the rainfall in the region has suddenly ceased. Barring sporadic spells of a light shower, there has been no substantial rainfall for the last four weeks.
The initial monsoon showers in the first week of July brought in 452 mm of rainfall in the Tura-Ganol region, according to data from the Weather Research Station of the Rubber board of India located at Ganol, 12 km from Tura. This was substantial given the fact that last year’s entire July rainfall was only 237 mm.
Since February, Tura has received 908.5 mm of rainfall, highest being in May (414.5 mm) and lowest in March (77 mm).
The biggest worry for everyone is whether the rain situation will change for the better by the end of the monsoon season, which is less than two months away, or will it pose a serious threat to ground water reserves and impact the farming community—the backbone of livelihood in the region.
Unchecked deforestation, widespread illegal felling of trees in what remains of the reserve forests in Garo Hills, the stripping of the green cover to produce charcoal in the West Khasi Hills region, coal and limestone mining have all contributed to turning the weather for worse.
