Telangana on alert, likely to receive heavy to very heavy rains

Telangana is likely to witness fairly widespread rains with isolated heavy to very heavy downpours in many places and extremely heavy rain in one or two places till the coming weekend. The Indian Metrological Department issued an orange alert, warning about heavy rains coupled with thunderstorm, lightning and squally winds.

The widespread rains are attributed to an active southwest monsoon as well as a cyclonic circulation lying over northwest Bay of Bengal in the middle and upper tropospheric levels. Under its influence, a low-pressure area is very likely to form over Northwest Bay of Bengal during the next 48 hours.  It is likely to move west northwestwards along the monsoon trough during the subsequent two or three days, resulting in heavy rains in north Telangana districts as well as moderate rains in the rest of the State.

According to the officials of Telangana State Development Planning Society (TSDPS), Telangana continued to receive moderate and widespread rains since Tuesday night. The highest rainfall of 11 cm, was recorded at Jainoor in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district over the last 24 hours, followed by 9 cm in Kathlapur and Mallapur of Jagitial district along with Gangadhara of Karimnagar district. Heavy



rain occurred at many places in Mulugu district and at a few places in Peddapalli district.

While the districts of Adilabad, Kumuram Bheem Asifabad, Mancherial, Nirmal, Jagitial, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Kamareddy and Siddipet received heavy rainfall at isolated places, moderate and widespread rains were recorded in all over the State except Nalgonda, Wanaparthy and Narayanpet districts.

Rains lashed across Hyderabad and its peripheral areas with the highest rainfall of 1.2 cm recorded at Serlingampally area. The city has recorded average cumulative rainfall of 36.8 cm against normal rainfall of 21.9 cm with a deviation of 68 per cent (excess rainfall). Normal life was thrown out of gear in many places even as commuters faced a tough time moving through the snail-paced traffic.

Meanwhile, the mining activity has come to a grinding halt in open cast mines of Singareni Collieries Company Limited due to copious rains in Mancherial and Bhadradri Kothagudem districts. The continuous downpour led to the inundation of some open cast mines, forcing the authorities to halt the operations till further orders.