

#Cloudburst in uttarakhand full#
They are called 'bursts' probably because it was believed earlier that clouds were solid masses full of water. All heavy rains are not necessarily cloudbursts. In some cloudbursts, up to 5 inches (almost 13 centimeters) of rain can fall in an hour, often in the form of extremely large droplets. When they hit the peak, the moisture content is released in the form of rain. The low-pressure zone attracts clouds to the top of the mountain with great force. It usually occurs in high-altitude areas due to the formation of a low-pressure area on the top of a mountain. Often, these severe rainstorms appear in the summer, and in farming communities, they are sometimes welcomed, as a cloudburst can irrigate crops very thoroughly. Water flowing down steep slopes brings debris, boulders and uprooted trees with great velocity damaging any structure that comes in their way. Topographical conditions like steep hills favour the formation of these clouds. Flooding is common with cloudbursts, sweeping away people, animals and land on its way. This is due to a rapid condensation of the clouds.īecause of the amount of rain involved, a cloudburst can be quite dangerous, especially if it lasts for several hours. If these currents suddenly cease, the entire amount of water descends onto a small area with catastrophic force all of a sudden and causes mass destruction. Generally, cloudbursts are associated with thunderstorms and the air currents rushing upwards in a rainstorm hold up a large amount of water. Meteorologists say the rain from a cloudburst is usually of the shower type with a fall rate equal to or greater than 100 mm (4.94 inches) per hour. Moreover, one mini-hydropower project at Sangra in the Sanku division was damaged and some houses were damaged at Khangral on Kargil-Leh National Highway in Ladakh by cloudbursts.Ī cloudburst is a sudden aggressive rainstorm falling for a short period of time, limited to a small geographical area. In another incident, at least one person was killed while 10 went missing as flash floods triggered by incessant rains lashed Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, grim news of flash floods triggered by a cloudburst in a remote village in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir of where five bodies were recovered on so far Wednesday after some houses were swept away.
