What is Cloudburst ?

Cloudbursts are sudden, powerful, localized rainfall events that can seriously damage ecosystems and communities. When an area suffers a quick and excessive release of moisture from clouds, which results in severe rainfall and possibly disastrous effects. 

To better understand and be ready for these natural disasters, we shall explore their sources, effects, and potential mitigation techniques in this blog.

Cloudburst:

According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), an unexpected precipitation exceeding 100mm (or 10 cm) per hour over a geographical region of approximately 20 to 30 square km is a cloudburst.

Danish Meteorological Institute considers cloudburst to be more than 15 mm of precipitation in the course of 30 minutes.

Reasons for occurrence of sudden cloudbursts:

Cloudbursts are generally brought on by atmospheric convective processes. Warm, humid air rises quickly during these processes, cools as it soars, and condenses into clouds. The rising air generates updrafts, which cause cumulonimbus clouds to grow to enormous proportions. 

The water droplets inside these clouds clash, combine, and finally become too heavy for the updrafts to support, causing torrential rain as the clouds become taller.

National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) examined the reasons

  • Geography – cloudbursts evolve in a deep humid layer of air flow system capped by cold and dry air flow system in opposite direction
  • It occurs when the warm air currents block the raindrops from falling and causes an accumulation of water.

How to differentiate between Rain fall and Cloudburst?

Recent cloud bursts:

  1. Great Musi flood, 1908: On 26 September, 1908, Hyderabad’s surrounding areas witnessed a cloudburst. It was caused due to a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. The city had recorded 153.2 mm rainfall on 27 September, 1908. Mumbai cloudburst,
  2. Himachal Praadesh , 1992
  3. Mumbai cloudburst, 2005: On 26 July, 2005, Mumbai received an astonishing 944 mm of rain in just 24 hours. It lead to a big chaos in the city. 
  4. Uttarakhand cloudburst, 2013: In 2013, Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath received unprecedented heavy rainfall between 14 and 17 June. The estimated toll was around 10,000, with over 3,000 persons missing, as per the state government.
  5. Himachal Pradesh cloudburst, 2023: One person killed, three injured in Kullu.
  6. Himachal floods: 108 deaths, Rs 3738.28 cr monetary loss amid yellow alert in the state for 5 days.
  7. J&K Cloudburst: In Kulgam triggers flash flood; no injuries reported.

Copenhagen climate adaptation plan 2011 – suggests cloudburst management plan

Measures suggested under the plan 

  • Separate stormwater from wastewater
  • Divert drain water to the sea through roads, canals or urban waterways, and subterranean tunnels..

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