GUWAHATI: With a forecast for severe to very heavy rain in numerous areas of the region through Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an "orange alert" for the northeast.
IMD's "orange warning" is a warning to disaster management organisations to "be ready" for anything. Just a few days ago, the northeastern states saw nonstop rain.
In certain northeastern regions, this has caused a dramatic drop in daytime temperatures of up to 10 degrees Celsius below average. Guwahati, the capital of Assam, too experienced a sharp dip in daytime temperatures, with a high of 21.2 degrees Celsius on Sunday.
According to the IMD, during the previous 24 hours, light to moderate rain fell in the majority of locations over Meghalaya and in a small number of locations across Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, and Tripura.
During that time, isolated areas over Nagaland and Manipur had light rain.
On Sunday evening, the IMD's Regional Meteorological Center in Guwahati issued a 24-hour rain forecast for Meghalaya that included isolated areas of heavy to very heavy rain.
According to the alert for the same time period, isolated areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura are likely to see heavy rain. Strong low-level southerly and southwesterly winds from the Bay of Bengal to northeast India, according to the IMD, are highly likely to continue over March 19–21. (Sunday to Tuesday)
The northeast region will likely have broad to widespread downpour activity, heavy to very heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds through Tuesday, according to the Met Office.
On Saturday morning, the Jorhat district of Assam was shaken by an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6. There were tremors reported in the nearby areas as well. The 3.6-magnitude earthquake struck Jorhat at 9:03 a.m. at a depth of 50 km, according to the National Center for Seismology (NCS).
However, no casualties or property damage have yet been reported.
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