Uttarakhand Cloudbursts: 4 Key Facts to Know

A cloudburst in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district has caused flash floods, wreaking havoc in high-altitude villages of Dharali.

What happens in cloudbursts?

A cloudburst causes an enormous amount of

rainfall across a limited area within an extremely short span of time.

How much sudden rain qualifies as a cloudburst?

According to the India Meteorological Department, rain falling at a rate of over 100 millimetres an hour with strong winds and lightning across 20-30 square kilometres of area is termed a cloudburst.

However, in a 2023 paper, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu, and National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, define cloudburst as a "sudden downpour of rainfall in a range of 100-250

millimetres an hour in a short span covering a smaller spatial extent similar to one square kilometre". It is published in the International Handbook of Disaster Research.

Is a cloudburst in Uttarkashi unusual?

Occurrence of extreme weather events is frequent for locations at elevation 1000-2000 metres, "which are densely populated valley folds of the Himalayas," the 2023 paper says. Uttarkashi is located at about 1,160 metres above sea level.

Further, cloudburst events per unit area are "very high in

Uttarakhand", compared to other regions in the Indian Himalayas, with recent events being more severe and impacting more communities, it says.

Is this the first such incident in Uttarakhand? 

On July 26, heavy rains lashed Uttarakhand's Rudraprayag district, causing boulders to slide down a hillside and blocking the trekking route to Kedarnath. Over 1,600 Chardham pilgrims were evacuated to safety.

A sudden cloudburst on June 29 at Silai Band on the Barkot-Yamunotri Marg in Uttarakhand left an under-construction

hotel site damaged and eight to nine workers missing, according to officials.