By A red alert has been issued for Odisha, Chhattisgarh and the Vidarbha region as a deep depression continues to move across eastern India.
The system is currently located over north interior Odisha and adjoining Gangetic West Bengal, moving west-northwestwards at a speed of about 12 kilometres per hour.
The IMD said the depression is likely to track across north Odisha, south Jharkhand and north Chhattisgarh over the next 24 hours, bringing heavy to very heavy rainfall.
Some areas under the red alert could see extremely heavy rain exceeding 204.5 millimetres, raising the risk of flooding and waterlogging.
An orange alert has been issued for Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, western Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, where heavy to very heavy rain is forecast.
Rain alerts also cover Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar, with warnings of thunderstorms, lightning and strong winds.
The IMD has cautioned people in hilly regions about landslide risk and advised against driving through waterlogged roads in the affected states.
The weather department said the depression’s trajectory would continue to be closely monitored, with fresh forecasts to follow.
The IMD said in a July 28 press release that rainfall over northwest and central India is likely to be normal to above normal over the following four to five days, with the monsoon trough expected to stay close to its normal position this week.
Under the IMD’s colour-coded system, alerts progress from green through yellow and orange to red, with a red warning signalling weather severe enough to call for immediate action from both authorities and residents.
Red alerts from the IMD are reserved for situations warranting immediate action, urging state disaster management authorities to prepare for potential large-scale disruption to travel, power supply and daily life.
The IMD typically classifies a weather system as a deep depression when sustained wind speeds near its centre reach between 51 and 61 kilometres per hour, one step below a full cyclonic storm in intensity.
(Image: Photo by McKay Savage from London, UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
