C’garh shivers down to bone due to sudden showers
| Date :03-Jan-2020 |
Staff Reporter :
Raipur,
ALTHOUGH it was well anticipated by the weathermen, people all over State on Thursday woke up to a cloudy morning, followed by unexpected rains with some places witnessing heavy and some moderate showers. This state-wide weather phenomenon, which also brought the mercury down to shivering levels, kept most of the life across State a bit low-profile as people preferred to stay indoors even as inclement weather also coincided with optional holiday on the account of Guru Govind Singh Jayanti celebration. Unseasonal rains, however, also cast its shadow over normal life in state capital, since partial misty and foggy condition prevailing over Raipur skies affected the vehicular movement as motorists had to ply slow with caution.
As a result, there were reports of traffic snarls at some busy and prominent city roads and highways passing through State Capital. So much so that the sudden weather shift also prompted the state administration to declare holidays for two consecutive days on January 3 and 4 respectively in Raipur, in the wake of weathermen forecast that similar weather condition would continue to prevail.
It was however, most of the schools in Raipur and Durg districts respectively, barring a few, resumed their academic activities from January 2, Thursday onwards. During day-long widespread showers on Thursday, Rajnandgaon recorded highest rainfall of over 20.0mm followed with Bilaspur 13.4mm, Durg 11.6mm, Raipur 11mm, Mana (Airport area) 5.4mm, Pendra Road 5.2mm and Ambikapur 4.9mm rainfall. Many places received rainfall below 3mm across State. Apart from Jagdalpur, maximum temperature was below normal in all districts across the state owing to collateral effect of weather shift on Thursday.
Ambikapur retained the tag of ‘lowest maximum’ temperature with 14.6 degree, but the mercury here plummeted by merely 7 degrees only. However, Pendra Road and Bilaspur also shivered equally, but here the mercury took a dive of 9 degrees below the ‘normal maximum’ temperature mark to record 15.0 degrees and 17.2 degrees respectively. While talking to this scribe, Senior Meteorologist of Meteorological Centre, Raipur H P Chandra said, “Rains along with thundershowers at isolated places in Chhattisgarh today were fallout of a strong western disturbance, which is approaching towards Jammu and Kashmir. This phenomenon caused a cyclonic circulation, which persists over Gujarat, whereas concurrently, a trough from this circulation to West Madhya Pradesh and across, lies over Bihar to North West Bay of Bengal.”
The Senior Meteorologist further indicated that a similar weather condition may prevail for January 3rd as well with rainfall activities of low intensity likely to be recorded over North Chhattisgarh. Apropos, showers may also lash South Chhattisgarh, whereas Kanker, Dhamtari, Gariaband and Balod districts may receive receive moderate to heavy rainfall on Friday, he said. To a query, he explained that the temperature may dip furthermore by 4 or 5 degree Celsius over North Chhattisgarh on January 4th morning.
This shift in weather may envelop North Chhattisgarh and some its isolated pockets with ‘dense to very dense’ foggy conditions. Meanwhile, the Met Center as part of its state-wide forecast has also issued warning of moderate to medium rainfall or thundershowers at many places along with possibility of hailstorm at isolated places on Friday, January 2. The sky will be cloudy over Raipur with chances of thundershowers and short spells of rainfall. Maximum and minimum temperature is expected around 22 degrees and 14 degrees respectively in the city on Friday.