Bengal rain puts 26 cm on Sriniketan and a landslide watch on Darjeeling

A well-marked low-pressure area over Gangetic West Bengal, adjoining north coastal Odisha and the northwest Bay of Bengal dumped extreme rain on south Bengal in the 24 hours to the morning of 2 September. Sriniketan in Birbhum recorded 26 cm. Suri in the same district was also in the severe band. Burnpur in Paschim Bardhaman received 21 cm. Kolkata's Alipore station logged 13 cm. Barrackpore had 12 cm and Asansol 11 cm.

Those centimetre figures are the updated set from the Regional Meteorological Centre after an earlier 24-hour sheet to 8.30 a.m. on 1 September had shown milder totals: 51 mm at Kalaikunda, 50 mm at Panagarh, 44 mm at Canning, 43 mm at Barrackpore, 40 mm in Salt Lake and 23 mm in Kolkata. The system stayed nearly stationary through Monday night and Tuesday, then kept feeding the same districts.

RMC Kolkata on Wednesday issued a seven-day advisory for heavy rain, lightning and possible landslides in Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Orange alerts covered Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly and the 24 Parganas. East Bardhaman was on yellow. Heavy to very heavy rain (7 to 20 cm) remained likely in Hooghly, Birbhum and both Bardhaman districts in the next 24 hours. Kolkata, Howrah, Nadia, Murshidabad and the 24 Parganas were in the 7 to 11 cm band.

Sub-Himalayan districts, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar, were warned of heavy rain through 4 September. Hill roads there fail on saturated soil more than on raw millimetres. That is why the landslide line sits in the same bulletin as the Kolkata waterlogging line.

City roads flooded in low pockets. Office-hour traffic jammed. Schools and commuters took the delay. The southwest monsoon is still active. The low was forecast to drift west-northwest, which would shift the heaviest cell but not end the week of wet weather.

Bengal's rain story this week is a set of station numbers, not a statewide disaster declaration. 26 cm at Sriniketan and 21 cm at Burnpur are the figures that tell a district magistrate whether pumps and relief camps need to move. The Darjeeling watch is the figure that tells hill subdivisions to look at slope cracks before the next cell arrives.