Sanjeev Kumar Patro

Bhubaneswar: A moderate thunderstorm warning till 8 PM in the evening today has been predicted at as many as ten places in Odisha.

"A moderate thunderstorm with a wind speed between 41 - 51 KMH (in gusts) has been predicted for the places like Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Phulbani, Bhawanipatna, Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Koraput, Paralakhemundi and Gopalpur. No thunderstorm warning today for the rest of the districts, including Khurda, " said an IITM - IMD release.

The IMD has issued a warning for the ten places in Odisha. IMD predicts the exact location by availing the brightness temperature map model of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM).

As per the IITM prediction, a moderate thunderstorm is predicted to strike as many as 40 places in the country. Odisha alone accounted for 10 places. This shows Odisha bears the brunt of lightning activities in the country.

Last year, Odisha saw a massive 1.6 million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. The State emerged as the most lightning prone State in country by virtue of recording around 25 flash counts per sq km, finds a recent report by US - based Earth Networks.

Odisha alone accounted for nearly 13 per cent of the total cloud-to-ground strikes recorded in the country in 2019, when landmass of Odisha is mere 4.9 per cent of country’s landmass.

The largescale lightning activities in the State take a toll on the human life too. As per data available with Special Relief Commissioner Office, Odisha saw deaths of 292 persons during the year 2019-20. The toll in 2018-19 was 334.  The death toll in April this year stood at around 17.

As per Earth Networks, April, May, and June are the three months that had seen over 5,000 dangerous thunderstorm alerts in 2019. It attributed the reason behind high lightning activity to ramping up of Monsoon. The State will again witness a spell of lightning in the month of September, observed Earth Network report.

When Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh, Ganjam, Cuttack, Khurda, Bolangir and Nabarangpur have recorded a rise in lightning fatalities over the period of 2001-2019, three districts namely Boudh, Gajapati and Sonepur have recorded lower lightning deaths per year in the State for the same period

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