PUNE: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has noted that the year 2018 witnessed a large number of high impact weather events during the monsoon season this year. Also, in this year’s high impact events, ‘floods’ were the most frequent and widespread phenomenon. An IMD report noted that Kerala experienced one of the worst floods of the century, due to frequent heavy rain spells and several extremely heavy rain events, especially during the first half of August.

The IMD noted that almost all meteorological sub-divisions experienced one or other category of severe weather events during the season. The IMD stated that during the monsoon season, 10 low-pressure systems, which included one cyclone, one deep depression, four depressions, two well-marked low-pressure areas and two low-pressure areas, were formed against an average of six depressions and eight low-pressure areas. Ahead of the monsoon current, severe thunder squalls affected parts of northwest India, including Delhi on June 9. Parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were also affected by severe thunderstorms and lightning during the second week of June.

Speaking to Sakal Times, Mahesh Palawat, Vice-President, Meteorology and Climate Change with Skymet, a private meteorological service, said one of the reasons for the high impact weather events is climate change.

“One of the reasons for these increased depressions and other associated weather events is climate change and global warming. In the near future, we will witness more such weather events high in intensity as well as frequency, which will be due to climate change,” said Palawat.

He said different systems were observed in the Arabian Sea as well as the Bay of Bengal.

“This season we observed that systems developing in the Arabian Sea moved toward Yemen and Oman. Whereas, the systems developed in the Bay of Bengal affected the eastern coast where states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were affected. In the future also, we may experience similar movements of these systems in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal,” said Palawat.

According to an analysis at the end of the monsoon season 2018 by the IMD revealed that rainfall is reasonably distributed across the country barring east and northeast India.

However, a report published by the IMD stated that the reservoir levels monitored by the Central Water Commission (CWC) till September 30 in 2018 stood at 5 per cent higher than the 10-year mean storage and 17 per cent higher than the storages of the corresponding period during 2017.