Met allays fears of heavy rainfall in state

Patna: As the flood situation in Bihar continues to remain critical with over two lakh people becoming homeless, the state IMD has ruled out the possibility of any heavy rain in the state in the next four days. While the overcast sky on Monday morning made the people, who are already reeling under floodwaters, panicky, the Met forecast may come as a huge relief.
“Though there was a depression in north Bay of Bengal which brought heavy rainfall in West Bengal and neighbouring Jharkhand, it will have very little effect on Bihar. The marked low pressure area is moving away towards Chhattisgarh. Bihar will only get light to moderate rainfall with an overcast sky till Tuesday morning. Thereafter, the sky will clear up and the state would remain dry till Friday,” said state IMD director A K Sen, adding that another low pressure area would develop over northwest Bay of Bengal around August 27 and if all goes well, Bihar will again get good amount of rain by August 29.
According to IMD Delhi and Skymet Weather Services too, rain intensity is expected to reduce gradually in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Incidentally, the overall rain deficit in Bihar is now 16%. Ten districts of north Bihar, on the other hand, have a rainfall deficit of 30% to 40%. The maximum shortfall is in Munger, followed by Sheohar, Siwan, Saran, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, Samastipur, Muzaffarpur, East and West Champaran. The other districts which have registered deficit rainfall are Begusarai and Gopalganj.
If the trend continues, the rainfall deficit might adversely hit kharif cultivation in the affected districts. The silver lining, however, is that paddy transplantation is almost complete, and if August rain improves, these districts would overcome drought threat.