India, June 6 -- The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had on June 5 forecast that the intensity of heavy rainfall will reduce over the northeastern states in the next five days. However, this was preceded by intense rain that led to floods and landslides across the region in the past week. How unusual was this rain? An HT analysis shows that most of the unusual rain in the region took place over the course of five days: from May 30 to June 3. The rain in this five-day period was the highest for the five days ending June 3 since 1901 across six of the eight states in the region; and in six states this rain was worth more than the rain of 15 days ending June 3.

To be sure, some places in north-eastern states continued to be unusually ...