Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Summer rains have caused unprecedented damage to various crops in the country. Among the crops that have been affected include rice, mangoes, wheat, cashew, nilgiri strawberry, white arecanut among others.
Meanwhile forecast of the Indian Meteorological Department indicated Forecast valid upto to April 7 indicate that rain or thundershowers are likely at many places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab during next 48 hours.
Rain or thundershowers are likely at many places over Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi and West Uttar Pradesh till Saturday. The rains are expected to ease only after Monday.
India's wheat crop, the world's second-biggest, may be damaged by thunderstorms and untimely rains in the main growing areas.
Current meteorological analysis suggests that ongoing weather activity under the influence of western disturbance over northwest India is likely to continue till April 5 and decrease considerably from Sunday onwards, according to an IMD update.
Under the influence of wind discontinuity and embedded cyclonic circulation scattered rain or thundershower activity is likely over east and northeast India during next 48 hours and decrease thereafter.
Rains in South India
Most of the regions in South India have experienced above average and record rainfall in March . This led to crop loss worth Rs 2000 crore in Kerala itself.
Explaining the trend, an IMD report said that during the months of March and April, southern parts of peninsula are occasionally affected by shallow disturbances in the forms of easterly waves.
During March 2008, two such disturbances came in quick succession and caused unusually high rainfall over southern States. The widespread rainfall activity commenced over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala from 13th March onwards.
With the northward propagation of easterly wave and its interaction with the westerly trough, the enhanced rainfall activity continued till 18th.and extended northwards into Karnataka.
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Subsequently, a fresh spell of more intense rainfall activity was experienced over most parts of south peninsula when a trough of low pressure extending from Gulf of Mannar to southwest Bay moved westwards and intensified into a low pressure area over southeast Arabian Sea on 20th.
It moved slightly northwards that too very slowly and again interacted with the middle and upper tropospheric westerly trough. It created very favourable wind field conditions over south peninsula and caused heavy rainfall activity over Kerala, Tamil Nadu & Puducherry and Karnataka.
This widespread rainfall activity also extended into Andhra Pradesh on 22nd and continued till 24th March. Thereafter, with the weakening of the easterly wave, rainfall activity decreased considerably over peninsula.
This extended rainfall spell has caused excess rainfall in all the districts of Andhra Pradesh (23), Tamil Nadu(30), Karnataka (27) and Kerala (14) during 1st March to 26th March 2008. The percentage departures were extremely high in most of the districts because actual rain was unusually high against very low normal rainfall.
