India, Aug. 29 -- A death toll in the dozens, floodwater gushing through highways, and strain on the reservoir capacity of dams make it clear that the past week was unusually rainy in India's northern states and Union Territories (UTs). How unusual was this rain? An HT analysis of India Meteorological Department's (IMD) gridded dataset shows that the past week was around twice as rainy as the rainiest week on the long period average (LPA) chart of India's most northern regions, although there are differences across states.

Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir have been the worst affected by rain-related disasters in the past week. Therefore, HT checked how unusual the rain was in the week. The convention...