Bhubaneswar: With good rainfall in August and September, the average cumulative rainfall of the State from June 1 to September 30, 2019 has registered a surplus of 9.9%. While the cumulative rainfall in the State was deficient by 31.5% and 9.0% respectively in June and July, the rainfall in August and September remained surplus by 24.5% and 53.7%, respectively, said an official release.
According to a communiqué issued by the Special relief Commissioner (SRC), during the current year, advance of the South-West Monsoon was delayed.
Against normal timing of second week of June for arrival in Odisha, the South-West Monsoon advanced into Odisha on June 21 and covered 16 coastal, adjoining and southern districts in full and parts of six other districts. The entire Odisha was covered on June 22. However, the rainfall remained quite inadequate in most parts of the State during the last week of June and first three and half weeks of July delaying agricultural activities.
Then, good rainfall was received towards the end of July and the trend continued in the months of August and September. Due to heavy rainfall, flood and severe water logging situations were experienced in many Southern and Western districts of Odisha at least in three spells i.e. from July 27 to August 5, August 6 to 11 and August 12 to 16.
A moderate flood was experienced in River Mahanadi in the third spell when Bolangir town received a record amount of 555 mm rainfall in a single day on August 13 which created an unprecedented flood situation in the western Odisha town.
The district-wise cumulative rainfall data for the period from June 1 to 30, indicates that Malkanagiri district received the highest rainfall of 1888.6 mm (31.9% surplus) and Gajapati district received the lowest rainfall of 945.8 mm (2.6% surplus).
As many as 10 districts namely Koraput, Kalahandi, Jharsuguda, Puri, Malkanagiri, Balangir, Ganjam, Kandhamal, Subarnapur and Cuttack received surplus rainfall of more than 19% during the period from June 1 to September 30 (cumulative).
Nineteen districts which received normal rainfall (+ 19% to – 19%) during the same period are Bargarh, Khurdha, Nayagarh, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Jagatsinghpur, Gajapati, Jajpur, Sambalpur, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Dhenkanal, Nuapada, Boudh, Balasore, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj and Angul.
Rainfall in Deogarh remained deficit between 19% & 39% during the period from June 1 to September 30.
The State experienced a total 50.2 rainy days during June to September 2019 against the normal average of 52.4 rainy days. There were 7.4 rainy days in June, 13.7 rainy days in July, 14.6 rainy days in August and 14.5 rainy days in September.
Going by the Block-wise rainfall data, as many as 103 blocks have received surplus rainfall (>19%), 169 Blocks received normal rainfall (+ 19% to – 19%), 40 Blocks received deficit rainfall (-19% to -39%) and 2 Blocks received severe deficit rainfall (-39% to -59%) during these 4 months June-July-August-September, 2019 cumulatively. Two Blocks which have experienced severe deficit rainfall are Champua (-41.6%) and Jhumpura (-43.9%) in Keonjhar district.
