Bhubaneswar: Widespread rainfall that started in the beginning of July continued to lash the state on Sunday. Places received heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in past 24 hours under the influence of Thursday’s low pressure that intensified into a depression over Bay of Bengal.Such heavy rainfall, accompanied by waterlogging, not only affected people living in low-lying areas in the twin cities but also hit communication at several places. The state govt, on the other hand, kept its machinery ready to act promptly in sticky situations. The IMD evening forecast said the depression was expected to move west-northwestwards and cross the north Odisha coast between Chandbali and Digha, close to Balasore, in the next 12 hours causing heavy rainfall in parts of the state.The system would very likely continue to move westnorthwestwards, across north Odisha and north Chhattisgarh during subsequent 24 hours, an IMD bulletin said.Manorama Mohanty, head of the regional IMD centre in the city, said the rainfall intensity under influence of the system might decrease in the coastal pockets by Monday. So also the interior parts of state would witness a drop in rainfall activity by Tuesday. On Monday, orange warning was sounded warning of chances of heavy rainfall would continue in Bargarh, Sambalpur, Angul, Sonepur, Boudh, Nuapada and Balangir districts.Yellow warning was issued in eight districts, mostly in interior pockets, on Monday.The IMD regional head said heavy rainfall has brought a significant change in Odisha’s seasonal rainfall graph from deficit to excess by four per cent on Sunday.Official data shows on June 30, the state recorded a rainfall deficit of 47 per cent. Only one of total 30 districts, Dhenkanal, received normal rainfall. Mohanty said only six districts in the state come under the season’s rain deficit category now.The IMD rainfall report recorded Sunday morning shows Khajuripada in Kandhamal district getting the highest 276 mm of rain in last 24 hours. It was one of the nine places spread over different districts that received extremely heavy rainfall up to 204.5 mm.Besides, 17 places recorded very heavy rainfall up to 120 mm and another 64 districts saw heavy rainfall of below 120 mm, Mohanty added.Similarly, the rainfall report on Sunday evening revealed Sonepur recorded 146.4 mm rainfall during the day. Dhenkanal and Boudh followed with 84 mm and 76 mm rainfall respectively. The city recorded 0.3 mm rainfall, after it recorded 229.5 mm rainfall by morning.
