Having scripted a place in weather record books for receiving torrential rain for years, Sohra, erstwhile Cherrapunjee, will now have a Rain Museum and a Research Centre, as per the plans mooted by Meghalaya government.

The proposed centre on the lines of the High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratory set up at Mahabaleshwar, will showcase the uniqueness of the people and their culture besides providing necessary scientific back ups for high end research on rainfall.

The museum and the centre will act as a premier capacity building institution wherein visitors will be provided with all information of the place, the people and their culture and rainfall - that has become part of their lives since time immemorial.

High-end research

“The state government, through the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (an agency constituted to implement the state’s flagship Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Programme), has aptly decided to set up the Rain Museum and a Research Centre here,” a senior MBDA official told PTI.

He said the proposal is under process and is likely to get support from various interested institutions, both within the state and also from Central agencies.

The fact that Sohra and Mawsynram (neighbouring town west of here), receive huge amount of rainfall for years continuously, despite being located away from the ocean, has intrigued many weather researchers and provides a unique setting to understand the mechanism of very heavy rainfall processes in the absence of cyclonic disturbances, a white paper prepared by the Kolkata-based National Council of Science Museums, said.

Both these places are unlike the other wet places like the Hawaii islands in Pacific Ocean and La-Reunion in the Indian Ocean where they are both islands amidst vast oceans where cyclonic disturbances cause heavy rainfall.

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