2-day late monsoon meets ‘spatial continuity’ criteria

PUNE: Though Pune received just 5.4mm rainfall between Friday and Saturday morning, the weather officials said despite a two-day delay, there was no doubt that monsoon had entered Pune. The coastal areas of Maharashtra, meanwhile, received heavy downpour, helping the state become one of the “wettest” in the country at the moment.

K Sathi Devi, the head of the National Weather Forecasting Centre, India Meteorological Department (IMD), said the monsoon’s onset over Pune, Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra was declared keeping in mind the spatial continuity of monsoon. “Monsoon’s advance over a region — for instance, Pune — does not mean that it should rain continuously there. Monsoon is a large-scale system, which shows rainfall continuity over the region as it advances northwards. Pune and its surrounding regions have been receiving rains, and that meets the spatial continuity criteria,” she said.

Maharashtra’s Malvan recorded a staggering 491mm rainfall, followed by Vengurla (266mm) and Bhiwandi (210mm). Data available with the IMD showed that in the 24-hour period, rainfall had crossed the 200mm-mark only in some of Maharashtra’s coastal stations. Stations across all other states did not breach the mark.

Devi also explained why Pune usually receives less rainfall than Mumbai. She said this is because Pune is on the leeward side of the Western Ghats, while Mumbai is on the coast and located on the windward side of the Ghats. Strong monsoon winds are blocked by the Ghats. Therefore, the western side gets a lot of rain, even as the leeward side gets relatively less, she said.

The monsoon, meanwhile, had covered most of central Arabian Sea, most of Konkan, some more parts of Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha on Saturday. However, locations such as Nashik, Malegaon, Jalgaon, Buldhana, Akola, Amravati, Nagpur and Aurangabad were still waiting for the monsoon to roll in on Saturday.

Sources at Skymet Weather Services said an off-shore trough is currently running along the west coast, from Maharashtra coast to Kerala, and another trough is running from east Uttar Pradesh to Telangana across Vidarbha. “Moderate to heavy showers over Vidarbha, parts of Marathwada and many parts of Konkan are expected over the next 24 hours,” the private weather forecaster said on Saturday.