MYSURU: Since the last week of May, the Malnad region of south interior Karnataka has been under a deluge, prompting the administration to declare holidays for schools in a few areas, for more than 10 days.Met department officials say that while heavy rain is the norm, there is an interesting pattern between June 1 and July 4. Only a few areas of the rain-affected districts are receiving heavy rainfall, while the remaining areas still face rain shortage. So this heavy rainfall is not reflecting in the weekly data published by the Indian Meteorological Department ( IMD ).According to the data released by IMD, in this period (between June 1 and July 4), actual rainfall in Chamarajanagar district is -45%, compared to normal rainfall. Chamarajanagar is one of the hilly regions of the state and known for good rainfall. Shivamogga, another Malnad district, received -11% rainfall compared to normal rainfall.Interestingly, Mandya and Hassan districts recorded the highest rainfall in this period with both districts receiving +64% rain, compared to normal rainfall.Another interesting finding of this data analysis is in the latest week of analysis (between June 28 and July 4), with all districts of Mysuru region having received less rainfall. This week, rainfall was below the norm in many districts: Chikkamagaluru (-45%), Chamarajanagar (-80%), Hassan (-41%), Kodagu (-53%), and Mysuru (-18%). Only Mandya got more rain (+4 %) compared to normal rainfall.“In this period, the state received just 37mm rainfall, which is -41% compared to the normal 62.9mm rainfall for the state,” explained an officer.“There is no clarity why there is such a big change in the rain pattern this year. For example, in the past 10 days, Charmadi Ghat region, including Mudigere, Kottigehara and Banakal areas have not received heavy rainfall. But nearby areas like Sringeri, Kalasa and Koppa are flooded. Generally, monsoon rainfall should be similar in all areas,” said an officer who wished to be unnamed.Srinivasa Reddy, director, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), told TOI that extreme weather conditions may be the result of climate change. “This year, there was no excess rainfall. It is normal rainfall, according to our analysis,” he said.“Extreme weather conditions like heavy rain for a day and a break for the next few days/weeks are the impact of climate change. These trends have been reported over a few years. If you analyze the rain data of the past 100 years, there isn’t much difference in actual rainfall. But for us, distribution of rainfall is more important than quantity. Keeping this trend, we are pushing for initiatives like rainwater harvesting, farm ponds, educating farmers etc,” he said.

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