The weather gods in Gujarat have been acting funny this election season! In a sudden change of weather on Sunday, many parts of the state were hit by rain. This spell of rain in Ahmedabad was the heaviest in last 32 years in the month of April. The rain was accompanied by thunderstorm and squally winds of over 50 kmph, which uprooted trees and claimed the lives of eight people.
While rain and strong winds provided much needed relief from the terribly hot weather in Gujarat, it also blew up roofs of houses of slum dwellers, and brought down mobile towers and roadside election hoardings. Monday morning started with traffic jams as the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) stayed busy removing fallen trees from the roads.
According to the latest weather update by Skymet Meteorology Division in India rain figures in Gujarat looked like this. Ahmedabad – 11.4 mm of rain, this was the highest rainfall recorded in a single day in the city recorded in 32 years. The last time Ahmedabad recorded rainfall higher than this, was 21.9 mm on April 20th in 1982.
Other cities which received rain were: Gandhinagar – 45 mm, where Lal Krishna Advani’s was cancelled due to flooding and Rajkot – 5.6 mm. Baroda and Vallabh Vidyanagar recorded traces of rainfall.
The thunderstorm-hit districts included Ahmedabad, Amreli, Gandhinagar, Junagadh, Rajkot, Kutch and Patan. But besides thunderstorm and unseasonal rains, hail also struck at several places, such as Chotila in Surendrangar, Dehgam in Gandhinagar and some parts of Kutch and Rajkot.
While on one hand hailstorm affected the famous kesar-aam crop of Gujarat, two persons, aged 24 and 14 lost their life in Rakhiyal district in Ahmedabad, as a tree fell on them. Media reports confirm eight deaths so far in Gujarat, out of which five were in Ahmedabad alone. More such incidents of death and injuries are pouring in from many other cities of Gujarat.
“Thundershowers in pre-monsoon season are normal but weather events such as this are not very common. Enough moisture from the Arabian Sea, high temperatures, apt for heating up the atmosphere and formation of cyclonic circulations are responsibly for such incidents”, says G.P Sharma of Skymet Meteorology Division.
“The normal rainfall amount for Ahmedabad for the month of April is 2.7 mm. Therefore, this proves the rarity of such events”, added Mr. Sharma.
Another meteorologist Mahesh Palawat agrees, “Yes, it is unusual for Gujarat to observe such amounts of rain in the month of April but Gujarat, in the last few years has been witnessing such intense and short weather phenomenon.”
