Thiruvananthapuram | The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday confirmed that the heavy rainfall event in Kalamassery near Kochi on May 28 was a cloudburst.
The intense rainfall, lasting an hour, had caused significant flooding in many parts of Kalamassery, severely disrupting life in the industrial area of Kerala.
According to the IMD, the Automatic Weather Station at the Advanced Center for Atmospheric Radar Research (ACARR) on the CUSAT campus in Thrikkakara recorded 103 mm of rain in just one hour.
Another weather station in Kalamassery, about a kilometre away, reported 100 mm of rain during the same period from 9.30 AM to 10.30 AM.
"Hence, we may consider this heavy rainfall event to be a cloud burst," the IMD said.
Historically, cloudbursts have been believed to occur in the hilly regions of the Western Ghats, particularly during active monsoon periods.
However, due to a lack of sufficient observatories in the past, many such events went undetected and unclassified.
The IMD noted a similar event on March 26, 2010, when 92 mm of rain was recorded in one hour by a Self-Recording Rain Gauge at the Meteorological Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
Therefore, the recent cloudburst in Kalamassery is not the first in Kerala's history, it added.
