Standing Crops under Risk in Delta, Dry Window available for next day or two

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Yesterday saw another day of heavy rains along the delta region of Coastal Tamil Nadu with some places recording close to 100 mm while Thiruvaiyaaru in Thanjavur district recorded about 11 cm in 24 hours ending at 8:30 AM.  While delta recorded moderate to heavy rains at many places as mentioned in our yesterday’s post interior Tamil Nadu also saw rains at many places with Erode, Karur, Namakkal & Coimbatore districts recording light rains at a few places.  Similarly South Tamil Nadu also saw fairly widespread rains in Madurai, Sivaganga, Pudukottai & Ramanathapuram districts with parts of Tirunelveli district also recording moderate rains.

If one looks at the rainfall pattern which peaked around midnight of 21st January 2017 and continued till the evening of 21st many places have got more than 100 mm in the 24 hours time frame which is likely to put the Standing Crops under Risk particularly when they are ready for harvest.  A majority of the farmers who are dependant on River / Canals for their water needs possibly have already lost their crops.  Those farmers who have possibly used Ground Water / Well for cultivation and possibly waiting to harvest their crops run risk of loosing their harvest due to these rains. With close to 10 – 15 cms rains at many places in the Delta districts ripe paddy crops ready for harvest could possibly see the paddy get sprouted on the floor making things worse from the harvesting perspective.

Though the good news is possibly the availability of a period of dry window for the next couple of days which farmers should use and harvest available paddy to save from further damage from possible rains which are likely to resume once again around 25th / 26th of January thanks to the possible Low Pressure which could develop off the Sri Lankan coast. Numerical models indicate once again possibly delta districts in line for some of the heaviest spells of rains along Coastal Tamil Nadu.

Powered by WPeMatico