IMD issues orange, red alert for Karnataka, predicts heavy rainfall in Bengaluru

Bengaluru will experience rain and thunderstorms in the next two days.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued red and orange alerts for Karnataka on Friday following widespread rainfall in Karnataka’s coastal regions. It said that a low-pressure area will be formed over the west and central regions in the coming days following which the IMD issued a red alert for July 11 and 12 and an orange alert for July 10 and 13.

A view of the clouds hover the sky during heavy rain with strong wind, in Mandya in this file photo from May. (ANI Photo)

Capital Bengaluru will experience rain and thunderstorms in the next two days, IMD Bengaluru director CS Patil was quoted as saying by Livemint. An orange alert means heavy rainfall and a red alert means exceptionally heavy rainfall, according to the parameters set by the IMD.

Patil said Shivamogga, Chikkmagaluru, Hassan and Kodagu districts received less rainfall between June 1-July 7, as a result of which popular tourist spot Jog Falls is drying up. Environmentalist Shankar Sharma has blamed the recent deficit in rainfall on the drastic reduction of forest cover. “One of the most important reasons behind this is drastically reducing forest cover. The problem is that none of the political leaders and the so-called intellectuals is bothered about that. We have to massively increase the forest cover in these areas,” Shankar was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

According to the IMD, Shimoga, Udipi, Dakshin Kannada, Kodagu, Mysore, Hassan, and Chikmagalur have remained rain deficient regions this year based on data collected from June 1 to July 9. On the contrary, Bidar, Gulbarga, Belgaum, Bagalkot, Dharwad, Raichur, Koppal, Gadag, Bellary, Devangere, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Mandhya, Chamarajanagar, and Bangalore rural are among districts that experienced ‘excess’ to ‘very excess’ rainfall during the same time period.

The IMD predicted that rain activity over both east and west coasts might increase due to the strengthening of the southwest monsoon over the Arabian Sea and a low-pressure area which is expected to form over the west-central and adjoining north-west Bay of Bengal around July 11. The increase in rainfall is likely to continue over the next 5 days. Maharashtra, Goa, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala may receive heavy to very heavy rainfall between July 9 and July 12.

However, the intensity and distribution of rainfall may decrease over the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.