Mercury dips in NE after wet spell; snow drapes Shillong

December 23, 2021 48 Views No Comment

Staff Reporter/Correspondent DIMAPUR/SHILLONG, DEC 23 (NPN): Cold wave gripped the North East region Wednesday after rainfall lashed several parts of the region while Meghalaya’s state capital Shillong was covered beautifully under a thick blanket of hailstone or possible snowflakes.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the rainfall activity was due to the influence of cyclonic circulation over south Bangladesh & neighbourhood at lower tropospheric levels. It said light to moderate isolated/scattered rainfall was likely over Assam & Meghalaya and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura during next two days with isolated thunderstorm.

Shillong: Photos shared on social media showed large areas of the city and its suburbs covered with thick blanket of hailstone. Many of the people in the state had only heard about snowfall in other mountainous states of the country.

“It was a showering of hailstone, but in some places in Upper Shillong we are yet to confirm if there was light snow fall. This weather condition is due to the trough in the Westerlies,” Rakesh Kumar, scientist at the IMD in Upper Shillong said.

“This kind of disturbances occur mostly in the higher reaches of the Himalayas and affect states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and others, but in some cases these disturbances move across Tibet and then come down south to the foothills of the Himalayas,” he explained.

The weather condition took most by surprise because such winter rainfall is rare. However, what was more surprising was the heavy showering of hailstone and possible snowfall that covered the open spaces, streets and rooftops.

Traffic on the streets was thin owing to the weather condition. Due to the extreme weather conditions, the temperature dropped drastically and plummeted from 11.6 degree Celsius before the rainfall and hailstone, to 6 degree Celsius. This temperature is at least 2 degrees below normal.

Source: http://www.nagalandpost.com/mercury-dips-in-ne-after-wet-spell-snow-drapes-shillong/247243.html