Karnal recorded a whopping 245mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours ending 8.30 am yesterday morning. This is an all-time 24-hour highest rainfall for Karnal in the month of July. With this, it also surpassed its monthly normal of 171.1mm in a single day. Also, Karnal goes on to record 280.4mm of rainfall in July so far, an excess of 300% from the average. Earlier, Karnal had recorded a very similar downpour of 242mm on 15th July 1968 and a new milestone now of this subdivision. During the last 10 years, Karnal had a record of clocking highest of 121mm on 05th July 2020.
District Karnal had a seasonal deficiency of 36% as it recorded only 60.5mm rainfall against the normal of 95.1mm, till yesterday. With this single-day downpour, the city famous for the ‘Battle of Karnal’ of 1729, goes on to become surplus, with more heavy rains likely in the next 24 hours.
The southwest monsoon arrived late for Karnal on 13th July 2021, along with the remaining left-out parts of Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan. The change over of airmass, from pre-monsoon to monsoon for the region generated localized instability, forming tall clouds. Very heavy thundershowers over Karnal and the neighborhood flooded many parts of the town, literally submerging roads and lanes. The presence of trough along the foothills of Uttarakhand is expected to lash Karnal with more heavy rains in the next 48 hours. It is likely to ease out on 16th and 17th July and pick up again between 18th and 20th July. Heavy to very heavy downpour is quite likely on 18th and 19th July 2021.