Widespread and heavy rains are expected over different parts of Vidarbha on August 19 to 21 including Nagpur, India Meteorological Department (IMD) authorities said on Tuesday.
In view of this, IMD issued an orange alert for all over Vidarbha for next two days and yellow alert for August 21. Nagpur division, for the past few days, is receiving good rains and the monsoon activity will continue till the end of the month. According to the sources, a low pressure area has formed over the North Bay of Bengal, fourth in a row in the month of August. It is likely to become well marked in the next 24 hours over the same area. Thereafter, the system will move nearly westward across Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra including Vidarbha, and Gujarat over the next four days.
Flooding rains in excess of 150 mm in 24 hours accompanied with strong winds are quite likely over Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha on August 20 and 21. The Southwest Monsoon is maintaining a fast pace in August so far. Not withstanding the July deficiency of 10%, the seasonal rainfall since June 1st now stands at 104%. Mere 14% of the total area is rain deficit and the rest is normal to excess. This low pressure area is likely to lash the central region more than the others and possibly all the subdivisions in these parts will turn surplus by this weekend. On Tuesday, Buldhana received the highest 55 mm rainfall while Gondia also received 41 mm rainfall. Akola (14.3 mm), Amravati (7.8 mm), Chandrapur (1.1 mm), Gadchiroli (4.2 mm), Nagpur (1.7 mm), Wardha (0.4 mm), Washim (2.0 mm) andYavatmal (8.0 mm) also received light showers on Tuesday. The maximum temperature all over Vidarbha is hovering below 30 degree Celsius and above 25 degrees.