It rains, but not everywhere in city

BHUBANESWAR: When a steady shower lashed  Sahid Nagar and its neighbourhood throwing normal life out of gear for a good half an hour on Saturday afternoon, it was business as usual at Chandrasekharpur and Patia areas without any sign of rainfall. These days, when it rains, it does not necessarily rain across the city. The automatic rain gauge systems of India Meteorological Department(IMD) prove the point. Installed at four parts of the Capital, the stations have separate rainfall data to show. Records available for June and first week of the current month show this peculiar trend. In June, on more than half the number of days, four stations recorded separate rainfall figures. On June 5, the station at OUAT recorded 33-mm rain whereas the KIIT system had just 20 mm. On June 11, Patia and Chandrasekharpur area recorded 22 mm rain while the rest three stations recorded a maximum of 1 mm. It is not just about localised rain, the weather office source said. The formation of convective clouds _ produced from warm air pockets rising through the atmosphere _ and their movement is the reason for the uneven rainfall, said IMD Director SC Sahu. While passing through different pockets when the clouds come across moisture, rainfall is caused. Those area witnessed rainfall where atmosphere had moisture, he said. Although half the time, the rainfall recordings are more or less uniform, the same can not be said about the remaining half. On June 29, OUAT system registered 11 mm while KIIT station recorded 21 mm. The other two stations in the City had recorded just 2 mm and 1 mm. The trend was similar for the first week of July too. On July 1, OUAT rain gauge station recorded 19 mm while the one at KIIT had none. The pattern did not change  for the entire week. Meanwhile, the latest cumulative rainfall figures released by Revenue and Disaster Management Department have revealed that at least half the districts have received deficient rainfall. Boudh recorded the lowest rainfall with a minus 59 per cent deviation while Nuapada recorded over 52 per cent deviation from the normal. Overall, the State recorded a minus 16 per cent deviation till July 23, sources informed.