Mumbai is experiencing incremental weather since last few days. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)With Tuesday’s downpour, Mumbai has recorded 69.41 per cent (594 mm) of the average July rainfall (855.7 mm) in just the first five days of the month.
After a dry period in June, the city has recorded moderate to heavy rainfall since the start of this month. On three days this month, the city received more than 100 mm rain. In nine hours on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Santacruz observatory recorded 153.3 mm of rain, categorised as very heavy rainfall.
The weather bureau has forecast the current surge in rainfall activity to continue in Mumbai and the entire Konkan region and ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra till the end of this week. Maharashtra is very likely to experience an active rainfall spell this week.
“Due to active monsoon conditions, rainfall activity over Konkan and adjoining ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra is expected to increase in the next 4 to 5 days. Widespread rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and isolated extremely heavy rainfall is expected over the region in this period. Parts of Marathwada and Vidarbha are also very likely to receive widespread rainfall activity,” stated the forecast.
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The IMD has issued an orange alert for Mumbai and Thane for July 7-8, indicating extremely heavy rainfall in isolated places, while a red alert has been issued for Palghar (July 8) and Raigad and Ratnagiri till July 8.
The IMD’s Santacruz observatory recorded total rainfall for the season at 733 mm, which is 13 mm higher than average, while the Colaba conservatory recorded 48 mm surplus rain. In the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Tuesday, rainfall recorded by the Colaba observatory was 117.4 mm while the Santacruz observatory recorded 124.2 mm rainfall.
Dr Jayanta Sarkar, scientist and head of the Regional Meteorological Centre, Mumbai, said, “The weather conditions currently are very active in the state. The reason is various favourable synoptic situations like a low-pressure area, whose latest location is central parts of Madhya Pradesh (as on Tuesday afternoon), an offshore trough from Gujarat coast to Maharashtra coast and strong westerly winds. We expect widespread rains in the entire state for the next five days and especially scattered places could see heavy to very heavy rain and isolated places could see extremely heavy rain.”
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