Waves of rain: on Odisha and intense rain events

Odisha is experiencing one of its most intense monsoons , recording 1,453 mm of rainfall between June and September 25 this year, a 29% excess. The reason is the unusually large number of atmospheric systems, including 11 over the Bay of Bengal, the latest making landfall near Kalingapatnam on September 23. The IMD had forecast that India would receive 90% of the long-period average partly because an El Niño was expected to develop; the State had finished June itself with a 47% deficit. However, rainfall in the region came to be dominated by the weather systems, which also repeatedly delivered rain without giving locals time to recover. By the State’s estimates, 5.2 lakh people had been affected by July 30 and another 13.5 lakh by August 27 .