78mm Rainfall inundates Indore

Indore: Badal barsa bijuli... from reels to reality, Indore is on a rain rendezvous. Dark clouds covered Indore horizon on Friday evening unleashing relentless downpour that continued for hours. The Met department has sounded red alert for Indore and adjoining areas with with expected rainfall exceeding 204.5 mm or more. The city recorded 78.4 mm of rainfall on Friday evening until 11:30pm. During the intense spell of heavy rainfall in the evening hours, Indore came to a halt for nearly two hours due to widespread chaos and inconvenience for the city’s residents and commuters with many streets waterlogged and causing severe traffic jams turning the recent rain rendezvous into a nightmare. The city’s most prominent squares including Vijay Nagar, Palasia, Satya Sai, Regal Square, Juni Indore, Ranipura, Rajwada, GPO, Bhawarkuan, and Rasoma Square faced the worst of inundation.Commuters found themselves trapped in seemingly endless traffic jams, with long queues of vehicles stretching along the waterlogged roads. The situation was worsened by the persistent downpour, which showed no signs of abating.Till Friday evening, it was Kannod in Dewas district that experienced the most substantial rainfall, with a staggering 46mm recorded. Khandwa and Ratlam, also part of the affected region, received 5mm and 10mm of rainfall respectively. The Meteorological department had issued orange and yellow alerts, warning of very heavy to heavy rainfall across various parts of the Indore and Ujjain division for the day.As if this deluge wasn’t enough, the latest foecast from the Met department paint a grim picture for the region. A red alert has been issued for isolated extremely heavy rain and thunderstorms, with expected rainfall exceeding 204.5 mm or more, in districts including Burahanpur, Khargone, Badwani, Alirajpur, Jhabua, Dhar, Indore and Dewas on Saturday. The outlook for Sunday remains equally ominous, with the same red alert issued for Khargone, Badwani, Alirajpur, Jhabua, Dhar, and Indore districts.Senior meteorologist Dr Ved Prakash Singh from IMD Bhopal attributed this weather phenomenon to an active well marked low-pressure area over the North Bay of Bengal and the adjacent Odisha coast, coupled with a cyclonic circulation system. “This system is expected to move towards Odisha and Chhattisgarh in the next two days. Simultaneously, the monsoon trough line is sweeping southeast through Bikaner, Shivpuri, Sidhi, and Jamshedpur, leading to a prolonged period of heavy rainfall in Madhya Pradesh,” said Dr Singh adding that this weather system would remain active until September 18 after which a new system is expected to emerge and persist until September 24. This stint of monsoon in its last lap before withdrawal in MP is expected to cover the deficit rainfall in many parts of the region that was reported due to a prolonged dry spell in August.