Torrential rains trigger deadly flooding in Sri Lanka, India
Posted on November 11th, 2021

By Adam Douty, AccuWeather,

Torrential rains trigger deadly flooding in Sri Lanka, India

Residents evacuate an elderly woman to a safer place through a flooded neighborhood during incessant heavy rains, in Chennai, India, on Thursday. Photo by Idrees Mohammed/EPA-EFE

Rounds of heavy rain that inundated parts of Sri Lanka and southeastern India this week caused severe flooding and mudslides that are being blamed for at least 41 deaths across the region.

Parts of Sri Lanka were drenched with heavy rain from last weekend into early this week with over 4 inches reported in some areas. The heaviest rain has since moved out of the country, but some showers and thunderstorms could stick around through the weekend, AccuWeather forecasters say.

As India’s northeast monsoon gets into full swing, heavy rain also fell in southern India across the state of Tamil Nadu this week. Flooding killed at least 16 in the state, according to the State Disaster Management Minister KKSSR Ramachandran.

India’s northeast monsoon is an annual occurrence that pumps moisture from the Bay of Bengal into southeastern India during the autumn and early winter which can result in heavy rain and flooding, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist and lead international forecaster Jason Nicholls.

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It is also not uncommon for tropical cyclones to develop across the southern Bay of Bengal and move into southeastern India during the northeast monsoon.

This is what happened this week as a tropical depression formed in the Bay of Bengal and moved inland across Tamil Nadu on Thursday, bringing another dose of heavy rain and gusty winds.

India’s Meteorological Department issued a red alert for the heavy rain across portions of Tamil Nadu on Thursday. A red alert is the highest warning level that the IMD issues, and it indicates a significant risk to life is possible.

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From Sunday to Thursday, 12 inches of rain fell across Chennai leading to significant flooding. About 6 inches fell from Wednesday into Thursday alone as the tropical depression moved onshore. Photos showed some pedestrians being forced to carry bikes through deep water on flooded roads around the city.

The heavy rain caused damage to about 1,300 houses across Tamil Nadu and inundated more than 100,000 acres of croplands, according to CNN.

In addition to all of the rain, strong winds halted landings at Chennai’s airport for nearly five hours on Thursday, but departures were still permitted. Wind gusts at the airport approached 50 mph.RELATEDWeather changes influence prevalence of bacterial diseases in bee colonies

Due to the flooding and gusty winds, Sun News reported that 61,700 residents were without power on Thursday in Chennai.

“Rainfall will wind down in southern India on Friday, but scattered lighter rains will continue through the weekend,” according to Nicholls.

However, AccuWeather meteorologists say residents should not let their guard down yet.

Conditions look favorable for another tropical depression to form across the Bay of Bengal next week and move into southeastern India by late in the week, according to Nicholls. This could bring another round of heavy rain, flooding and gusty winds to the region.

“This time of year is the second peak for tropical development in the northern Indian Ocean,” said Nicholls. “The northern Indian Ocean is different from other basins that typically only have one peak in tropical activity. The first peak in tropical activity across the northern Indian Ocean happens from April to June while the second peak is October to December.”

2 Responses to “Torrential rains trigger deadly flooding in Sri Lanka, India”

  1. aloy Says:

    The delegates attending COP26 in Glasgow have burnt midnight oil to finalize the release of their document. At the end of it the biggest polluter like India and China is giving a half hearted support for the thing; India which boasts of technological revolution wants 70 years to make their co2 emissions zero and is laughable. This means they can even go at the present rate and nearing the year 70 can drop down.

    They are all talking about reducing CO2 emissions without asking the states which are producing fossil fuels and making trillions to contribute a percentage for research to find ways to catch the CO2. We see their refineries inflammable gasses that burns on top of chimneys that rise sky high. Can’t they find a way to stop it?.

    Two thirds of earths surface is covered with oceans nd not enough research on the activity in the sea bed. Cannot these rich nations including the oil sheiks with trillions fund these research work.
    Most importantly they have to find out the contribution of rain forests by controlling the precipitation of moisture in the atmosphere. Their canopy covers the earth and probably diffuse the charges in the clouds in a controlled manner instead of discharging it all at once like in a desert country. A cloud chamber experiment conducted by our late prof. Mylvaganum in Colombo Uni six decades ago comes to mind. When he held an electrically charged rod near a glass cloud chamber the cloud immediately disappeared. Of course their may be other factors like the monsoon effects that comes yearly. I remember reading a paper written by one of my Uni colleague explaining the effect of release of water vapour by the vehicles in climate change.
    In my view, the deforestation and emissions of water vapour may be more important factor than the la bla bla they talk in the talking shop. UK does not want to stop their coal mining as the survival of their economies (and political parties too) are more important.

  2. aloy Says:

    The forests are like our lungs in reverse. They take CO2 from the air, water from both air and ground and release oxygen and make food/ medicine for us. We take oxygen for body function, take food and drink water from ground for growth. The forests and vegetation has a balance with creatures living there. I have read somewhere that in a certain state in the US they killed the wolves killing the animals feeding on the vegetation. At the end there was uncontrolled growth in the population of animals feeding on plants and now the place has become a desert.

    In our case in SL, the balance we had will be destroyed and the high population we have will be too much for the land to bear and many areas of it might become desert. And during the rainy season the rainfall will be too heavy. I have handled flood protection work in ASEAN region. I have listen to the rainfall of 350 mm in 24 ours the met department has recorded these days. This has a return period of about 50 years in terms of rainfall there. Which means this sort of rain fall can come once in fifty years. Perhaps due to deforestation this can become a common thing.

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