Vol. 11, Issue 3 (2023)

There was extremely heavy rainfall in Madhya Pradesh in Central India during 28th to 30th August 2020 in the monsoon season. Chhindwara, Betul and Hoshangabad are the three districts of M.P. which recorded extremely heavy rainfall at a number of stations. Chaurai station in Chhindwara district reported exceptionally heavy rainfall of 414.4mm on 29th August 2020 which is a record for the district, on 30th August on Hoshangabad station also recorded extremely heavy rainfall 340.4mm rainfall and district average rainfall of 250.6 mm was recorded on 29th August 2020 in Chhindwara which is also a new record. There was continuous rain for 3days in these districts which was very heavy to exceptionally heavy for 2 days which led to severe flood in the catchment area and downstream of river flowing through the area. Therefore a study has been made in this paper to find out the reason for such an exceptionally heavy rainfall. In the study prevailing synoptic situation, dynamics like convergence- divergence, satellite data, RADAR data and geography of the area were analyzed. The conclusion shows that the Well-Marked Low pressure area passing through Odisha to Rajasthan and Monsoon Trough also passed through this system during 27-30 August 2020 brought huge amount of moisture and their confluence region was central India so strong convergence and extremely heavy rainfall occurred on 28th Aug 2020 and caused extreme and exceptionally heavy rainfall recorded on 29th over three districts (Chhindwara, Betul & Hoshangabad) that fall in the Southwest quadrant of the passing system. Moisture incursion took place from both Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. During the said period, significant lower level convergence, upper level divergence and high positive vorticity were observed over the region intensifying the system. Due to the sluggish movement of the system the region under study got widespread rainfall for 3days. Chhindwara, Betul and Hoshangabad districts are situated on the Satpura range of mountains so orography was also very important factor for such extremely heavy rainfall.