Dehradun: The Dehradun district floods caused massive destruction after heavy rainfall triggered a cloudburst late Monday night, leading to severe flooding.
Key areas, including the popular tourist spot Sahastradhara and the IT Park, were submerged under water, and two people reportedly went missing. The cloudburst incidents in Dehradun, one after another, are not normal; instead, spark serious concerns over the future of those living in these areas. Several states in Northern India experienced flash flood events in 2025, resulting in a trail of destruction: loss of lives, property, crops, and public infrastructure. Hence, thinking about what is happening and why is not a luxury anymore, but also a need of the hour. Prior to this, the Maldevta area of Dehradun experienced a cloudburst incident on August 11, 2025. What it led to was obvious: massive destruction. As water gushed into houses, people were forced to leave their belongings behind and evacuate to save their lives. It disrupted the lives of thousands of people, while many animals were reportedly washed away. A few days later, Himachal Pradesh’s Chamoli experienced a cloudburst. By definition, a cloudburst is a natural event when a huge amount of rain suddenly falls very fast in a small area. It usually occurs over a short period, like minutes or a couple of hours. Rainfall rates can exceed 100 mm per hour, often resulting in rapid accumulation of water.
This was not it. Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi-NCR also experienced heavy showers, which followed major devastation in August. The memories of farmers crying helplessly in Punjab for damaged crops after the deluge are still fresh. It occurred in August only.
Delhi and Gurugram were not much out of the scene. While key subways were closed, several routes were not usable due to water that had filled up to neck-level.
What Caused The Frequent Cloudbursts and Flash Floods?
There is absolutely no doubt that we are facing a climate emergency. While we are failing to cut our emissions, the rush to build at any cost is leading to this destruction.
The problem is that the weather is becoming difficult to predict due to climate change. With the Earth getting warmer, there is more rain, but it falls in shorter bursts. This means instead of steady rain over days, all the rain comes in just a few hours. That’s exactly what we have seen recently.
There’s more going on with the weather. We have something called western disturbances — these are natural weather patterns where winds from theMediterranean bring rain to our region.
This monsoon season, instead of the usual one or two of these events, there have been 19, reported Down to Earth. These western disturbances are clashing with the monsoon winds, causing the heavy and sudden rainfall we’ve seen in northern India and Pakistan.
Scientists are not exactly sure why this is happening. But they know that the western disturbances are connected to a jet stream — a strong wind coming from the Arctic. Because the Arctic is warming and this jet stream is weakening, it’s disturbing other wind systems, including the western disturbances.
On top of this, winds from the Arabian Sea are also acting differently, pushing against the monsoon winds from the Bay of Bengal.
