the state witnessed unprecedented rains and flash floods this season with vidarbhas amravati and akola severely hit floods in western maharashtra were followed by landslides according to prof kiran kumar johare an internationally renowned cloudburst and meteorologist expert the sudden rains are nothing but cloudbursts according to the world meteorological organization wmo standards johare a former iitm scientist runs a farmer welfare blog titled concrete information not guesswork through which he gives rainrelated forecasts to farmers in maharashtra in an exclusive chat with toi johare says cloudbursts are a reality and that the local administration must learn to deal with such natural calamitiesexcerptsq your claims about cloudbursts are groundbreaking but there are no takersa according to the international standards 25 millimetres mm or one inch of rain in 15 minutes or 50 mm in 30 minutes or 75 mm in 45 minutes or 100 millimetres or more in a period of one hour are considered as cloudbursts even the indian meteorological departments imd website used to consider that rain falling at a rate of 100 millimetres per hour as a cloudbust till 2010 researchers in denmark uk us and many other countries including india use the term cloudburst for this much rain in their scientific research papers unfortunately in maharashtra our officials are using the confusing terms like ativrushti heavy rains mahavrushti very heavy rains etc which is not recognized by the wmo because they are unscientific confusing inaccurate and incompleteq have you noticed any such cloudbursts in vidarbha region this yeara unfortunately vidarbha and marathwada regions are on the hit list of cloudbursts on sunday july 11 at around 530am a massive cloudburst was witnessed in daryapur and anjangaon surji areas of amravati district thousands of acres of farmland got submerged and crop was washed away last year the rainfall in marathwada increased by about 200 per cent and in places like kannada more than 1000mm of rain was recorded agriculture in the whole of marathwada was severely damaged now east vidarbha has been witnessing an increasing number of rains and cloudbursts this will increase in the next few years due to the changed monsoon patternq in what way has the monsoon pattern changeda i have been claiming from the last 10 years or so that the monsoon pattern has changed in 2019 monsoon rains began on july 15 and continued till november 15 in 2020 the monsoon season started in august and continued till december in 2021 the real monsoon will start in august and rains will continue till december the rains we are receiving in june and july are flash rains or heavy premonsoon activity our standards mainly depend upon the rainfall parameters so once a rainfall of that much parameter is recorded our authorities announce that monsoon has arrived settled in etc as the monsoon pattern has changed we must plan our farming activities accordingly farmers must get early warningsq is it possible to give early warnings regarding cloudburstsa its very much possible for the weather