Maharashtra begins artificial rain project

For the small pockets of land in Maharashtra that received very modest rainfall on Saturday and Sunday, its was a man made gift of showers. Four very small pockets of land in Satara (Wadunj) and rural regions of Pune district (Daund, Baramati and Marinagar) received from a maximum of 11 millimeters (mm) of rainfall for 31 minutes on a 12 square kilometer tract of arid land to an almost abysmal 6.5 mm of rainfall for even lesser time.

Why the jubilation then? Because these regions fall within 10 most scarcity-hit districts of Maharashtra with no rains for the last three years. The state government has imported the requisite radar machines and other equipment at a cost of Rs.5.5 crore and hopes to continue creating artificial ‘November rains’ equipped with a Piper Cheyenne plane (light aircraft), armed with hygroscopic salts, for cloud seeding sorties over these and other scarcity hit regions.

Chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde said today: “The artificial rain is the outcome of an agreement signed between the state government and Ms Weather Modification Co through its subsidiary Ms Agni Aviation Consultants (Bangalore) on August 21, 2003. The equipment was imported and became operational on Saturday with the first experiment resulting in 11 mm of rainfall experienced over a 12 square km patch in Satara district for 31 minutes. The next day (Sunday) the same experiment was repeated in the three rural regions where around 6.5 mm of rainfall was recorded.

Cloud seeding is here to stay and will provide a shower of man induced artificial rainfall upon regions bereft of nature’s annual generosity. The state government has set up a control room in the Vidya Prathisthan located in Baramati from where sophisticated radar will monitor the availability of cumulus clouds drifting over the parched landscape that can be targeted and fueled with enough hugroscopic salts (shot into the base of the cloud).

Source: Business Standard

Rains this season create records in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur & Dehradun

Mumbai - breaking 50 year record

Monsoon has created a record of sorts this year. The rainfall witnessed is well on course to be ranked as the highest ever recorded in the city. There have been a number of intense rain spells, yet the city life has not been thrown out of gear even once. The data of monsoon witnessed between 1999 and 2009 indicates that there had been at least two rain days every year when the city life was halted, a senior official from the civic disaster management cell said. The Santa Cruz observatory has witnessed 3,309.2 mm rain this year, while the Colaba observatory has received 3,160.5 mm. A Met department officer said that with there being still some time before the monsoon withdraws, the rainfall-recorded is on course to be the highest ever. According to a senior official, the Santa Cruz observatory had recorded about 3,400mm rainfall in 2005, the year when an unprecedented rain event on July 26 saw a downpour of 944 mm. The second-highest rainfall recorded by the suburban observatory was 3,281.7 mm in 1958. The Met officials also suggested that the Colaba rainfall has already surpassed all rain records set in the past 50 years.

Dehra Dun - breaking 44 year record

The monsoon rainfall broke a 44-year-old record in Dehra Dun by registering a whopping 3088 mm of rainfall this season. Met Director Anand Sharma told PTI that the previous highest record was in 1966 when the Doon valley recorded 2930 mm of rainfall. Before 1966, records regarding monsoon rains are not available, he said. With heavy rains lashing Dehra Dun, several rivers in the valley were on spate which include Rispana, Bindal and Asan. Nine of the total 13 districts of Uttarakhand have received excess rainfall this monsoon season.

Jaipur - breaking 14 year record

Breaking a 14-year record, Jaipur received 781.2mm rain this year till Wednesday. Going by the Met department’s prediction, as the monsoon is still active in the state and will last till the end of the month, the figure is likely to change in the coming few days. According to officials of Indian Meteorological Department, Jaipur receives around 500 mm rainfall in normal circumstances. The last time it had rained so much was in 1996, when the showers had been plentiful to the point of becoming an abnormality. Jaipur city had then received 850 mm rain between June and September. Looking at the conditions of this year, Jaipur is heading towards and abnormal spell of monsoon. "The district has already received 40% rain in excess of the normal this year," an irrigation official said. The comparison becomes obvious with last year's rainfall chart when Jaipur received less than 300 mm rain and had to be included among the scarcity-hit districts of the state.

Delhi - breaking 32 year record

Records shows this is the wettest monsoon in Delhi since 1978. Rainfall since June 1 has touched 1004mm higher than 965.1mm recorded during the monsoon of 1978. Sunday's rain also took Delhi's rainfall during September to 250.6mm, the highest since 1998 when 280.4 mm was recorded. Last year, the figure had settled at 588 mm. Delhi recorded 455.1 mm rain in August, more than double its normal average of 225.8 mm. With 10 days remaining in the month, September too is poised to break records having recorded around 280mm more than normal.

4pm, More showers breaking out over S-W, central Karnataka, N-E Andhra and Central Tamilnadu... http://ow.ly/i/45RF

2pm, Thunder cells popping out over Central & S.central Tamilnadu, S-W, S. central. Karnataka and over N-E Andhra.. http://ow.ly/i/45MR

History of Kanyakumari District ... Research Book ... PDF download ... http://ow.ly/d/6Re

LA NINA & NEM 2010 .. report ... http://ow.ly/2JK5x

Look out: Record Breaking La Niña Occurring ... http://ow.ly/2JK4w

IMD upgrades tech to up forecasting accuracy ... http://ow.ly/2JK4l

Heavy rain hits middle kerala ... http://ow.ly/2JJlf

Seasonal activity over S-E Corner Bay will start from 30-Sep.

GFS :: The activity over S. Bay will move over Srilanka and then into Gulf Mannar causing widespread showers over S. Tamilnadu on 28-Sep

12pm, 95% India is having a dry day... Heavy activity over S-W and South Bay ... http://ow.ly/i/45DQ

RT @joshva: @weatherofindia Now it's so hot in Chennai.

In 24 to 36 hrs, Heavy T. showers forecast for Central, N-W Tamilnadu.

Chennai - Touched a max of 32.9 C (10:31am) and now 12:55pm we have breeze from E-N-E and temp. going down.

Chennai - Almost had a thunder shower around midnight ... West and S-W suburbs got some showers!

On 26-Sep, There'll be a low circulation along N. Tamilnadu and the S-E arabian sea circulation will persist.. http://ow.ly/i/45D5

Early morning Analysis show, LOW level circulation over S-E Arabian sea over Lakshadweep ... http://ow.ly/i/45Cu

LA NINA & NEM 2010

La Niña strengthened during August 2010, as negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies reached at least -1^oC across most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean by the end of the month. Consistent with this evolution, the subsurface heat content (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean) decreased further, reflecting the additional cooling of sub-surface waters east of the International Date Line.. Also convection was enhanced over Indonesia, while remaining suppressed over the western and central equatorial Pacific. The pattern was associated with the continuation of enhanced low-level easterly trade winds and anomalous upper-level westerly winds over the western and central equatorial Pacific. Collectively, these oceanic and atmospheric anomalies reflect the strengthening of La Niña.

1. During last week the equinoctial Pacific SST have been NEGATIVE:
2. LA NINA is expected to last during this Northern Hemisphere winter [2010-11]
3. Though Indonesian region convective activity is expected to enhance, sleek of this convective belt into Bay is NOT predicted.
4. There is chance that cold tongue may cross and sleek into western Pacific unto Indonesia.
   

Courtesy: Climate Prediction Center / NCEP
20 September 2010 {update}