GUWAHATI: All is not well in the horizon overseeing Assam and other states in the Northeast. Strangely enough, as many as 22,832 lightning events struck the Northeast, including 7,545 in Assam alone, on the first two days of September 2024.
Assam has every reason to worry as 45 people in the state lost their lives in lightning strikes in 2024 so far. The last casualty in the state was reported from the Morigaon district.
The sky has been cloudy with lightning events in Assam and its neighbouring states for the past few days. The September 1 rainfall in Guwahati (98.4 mm) was the highest in this year.
According to a report of the North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC), Umiam, Meghalaya, on September 1, the Northeast experienced 2,521 lightning events, including 1,398 in Assam.
Lightning is of two categories: cloud to ground (CG) and intra-cloud/inter-cloud (IC). Of them, CG often leads to casualties as it reaches the ground.
On September 1, Assam recorded 757 CG and 641 IC lightning events.
On September 2, the Northeast experienced 20,311 lightning events, including 6,147 in Assam. Of the 6,147 lightning events in Assam, 2,293 were CGs and 3,854 were ICs. NESAC prepared these statistics as observed by the Lightning Location Network of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.
The number of lightning events in the Northeast could be even more, as the NESAC says that the Lightning Location Network is not able to detect all lightning events.
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