Mumbai suburbs see heavy rain, flight arrivals hit

MUMBAI: Several parts of the suburbs witnessed heavy rain on Sunday, with Malad receiving maximum rainfall (110.8mm), followed by Powai (78mm). The heavy showers affected flight operations and suburban train services in the afternoon.
While the IMD Santacruz obeservatory recorded 94.7mm rainfall between 8.30am and 8.30pm, the Colaba observatory recorded 16.6mm. In contrast, the Santacruz observatory had recorded just 31.7mm rainfall and the Colaba observatory 151mm from 8.30am-8.30am between June 23-24. IMD’s forecast for Monday is intermittent rains in the city and suburbs with heavy to very heavy rainfall at one or two places.



The heavy rain affected arrival of flights at Mumbai airport on Sunday afternoon. The main runway was closed for flight operations for about 30 minutes, during which four go-arounds were carried out. “The main runway was non-operational from 3.43pm to 4.17pm for maintenance,” said an MIAL spokesperson. Flight operations were moved to secondary runway during this period. Railway commuters were inconvenienced due to the rain and megablocks on both Central Railway and Western Railway as services were delayed by 15-20 minutes.

Ajay Kumar, scientist from IMD Mumbai, said the weekend’s heavy showers were due to a cyclonic circulation over the north Konkan and adjoining south Gujarat and another circulation in the Bay of Bengal. “We expect rain activity to increase in the coming week, with scattered heavy to very heavy rain on June 27-28 in parts of north Konkan, including Mumbai,” he said.