Severe Thunderstorm Activities over India during SAARC STORM Project 2014-15: Study Based on Radar

Abstract

Severe thunderstorms create lot of damage to property and crops and human and animal fatalities through the strong surface wind squalls, large hail and occasional tornadoes accompanying them. Broad objectives of the Severe Thunderstorm Observation and Regional Modelling (STORM) programme were to understand the genesis, development and propagation of these systems for improved forecast skill for prediction of these severe thunderstorms. This paper reviews the status of convective activity over Indian region in 2014 and 2015 and discusses the two important severe thunderstorms that occurred on 30 May, 2014 in New Delhi and 21 April, 2015 in Purnia, Bihar. These two events caused lot of damage to life and property due to strong winds/gusts associated with the thunder squalls that affected these areas. Thunderstorm with squall was reported at Meteorological Office at Palam airport in New Delhi on 30 May, 2014 with wind speed in gust reaching 115 kmph .Similarly on 21 April, 2015 Doppler Weather Radar at Patna reported a micro burst signature at 1332UTC, 1352UTC, 1532UTC observations where the peaking winds of 48.2 m/s, 46.6 m/s, and 49.1 m/s were observed respectively, indicating severe wind damage potential at ground. In 2014, although the convective activity was less as compared to 2015 but a very widespread Hailstorm activity at the beginning of pre-monsoon period caused a lot of crop damage in Northwest and Central India.