Mapusa rain surges past 4,000mm mark

Panaji: In an extremely wet monsoon, which broke several rainfall records, Mapusa joined the 4,000+ mm club on Saturday, as Valpoi and Sanguem were way ahead with seasonal totals of 5,536.2mm and 5,437.6mm, respectively.

Eight other centres, Sanquelim, Quepem, Ponda, Old Goa, Panaji, Canacona, Pernem and Margao, had crossed the 4000mm threshold earlier.

So far, Mormugao has recorded 3,886.4mm and Dabolim is at the bottom with a rainfall of 3512.1mm. This monsoon saw extremely high rainfall of 236 mm recorded as state average rainfall on July 8. It being the wettest day of the season, Panaji recorded 360.8mm and Old Goa 333.8mm in 24 hours. As the four-month monsoon will end on Sep 30, the rainfall was widespread in the state. The highest rainfall recorded by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Panaji, was 18.2 mm at Canacona. Sanquelim received 16.6mm, Valpoi 14.6mm, Old Goa 14.4mm, Sanguem 12.2mm, Panaji 10.2 mm, and other centres on a lesser scale.

On Saturday, the seasonal total touched 4,399mm, whereas 2,992.4mm is considered normal at this stage. The surplus that persisted for several weeks remained at 47% on the weekend. “Without any ocean-atmospheric coupled phenomenon, such as El Nino or La Nina in the far eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean off Peru Coast or the equatorial Indian Ocean dipole (positive or negative) the monsoon not only survived but also put up a good show over the entire Indian subcontinent (7% surplus) and in Goa (47% surplus),” said meteorologist M R Ramesh Kumar.

But it was climatic factors such as monsoon trough, offshore trough off the west coast from Gujarat to Kerala, the low-level jet stream at altitudes above 1,500m with its core over Goa, and convective systems over the Bay of Bengal that yielded plentiful rain, Kumar said.