The first hail storms, with rain and gusty winds, of the year were reported for a very brief period at a few isolated places in Manipur on Wednesday.
The weather has changed a bit with the sunshine playing hide and seek since morning, said residents in Imphal.
As per a special weather bulletin of India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s Regional Meteorological Centre, Guwahati, the state is expected to witness ‘light to moderate rain’ at many places.
Thunderstorm/lightning with hail at isolated places with gusty winds on March 15 and 16 and similar pattern of light to moderate rain at many places, Thunderstorm/lightning at isolated places' is also expected on March 17.
Even though few locations at foothill areas such as Langol and Luwangpokpa areas in the greater Imphal area besides few places witnessed hailstorm with light rain before noon, Imphal town had a brief light rain around 4 pm.
However, places such as Kangpokpi district headquarters, 45 km north of Imphal and Ukhrul town, 84 km north-east of the state capital, besides few places in Imphal valley, witnessed hail storms accompanied by rainfall and gusty wind for about 30 minutes at around 10 am.
A resident of Ukhrul town when contacted said that they witnessed hailstorm for a very brief period on Wednesday.
‘As the sky looks cloudy, there might be rain in the next hours,’ another resident said.
Ukhrul had been experiencing acute shortage of water particularly, drinking water, since the beginning of February this year due to the drastic depletion of the main water sources (Shinguira River and Khokthi River) at Shirui mountain range, people familiar with the matter said.
Sharing the sufferings of the people, the Ukhrul MLA Ram Muivah had even written to the state authority to take up immediate as well as long term measures to address the water issues of the hill town.
Like Ukhrul and other hill towns, there are also reports of acute shortage of drinking water across the state following the drying up of the state's major rivers which feed nearly two dozen water supply plants in Imphal due to the depletion of the natural springs and water sources at the catchment areas.
Almost all the households in the Imphal area, which reportedly has a projected population of 7 lakh, are depending on private water tankers.
Since the past one week till date, people have been buying water tankers (10,000 litre) at INR 1800 to INR 2000 in some Imphal pockets.