Red alert in Palghar, Raigad; rain breaches Mumbai’s July average

With overnight heavy rainfall, several low-lying areas in Mumbai— Sion, SV Road between Bandra and Andheri, Milan and Andheri subway were inundated. Following the flooding, BEST buses were diverted from Sion, while the Andheri subway was shut for pedestrians and vehicular traffic till the afternoon.

In the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Santacruz observatory recorded 62 mm of rain as against 9.2 mm the day before. Similarly, the Colaba observatory also recorded moderate rainfall in the same period at 54.5 mm as against the 5 mm rainfall a day prior.

The city has been recording rainfall every day since July 1. With the heavy rain spell in the first 12 days of the month, the city has crossed its average July rainfall of 855.7 mm. Till Tuesday morning, the total rainfall recorded for July stood at 886 mm. IMD has forecast the rainfall to continue battering the entire Konkan coast.

An orange alert for Mumbai and Thane is in place till Thursday while a red alert has been issued for Palghar and Raigad for the same period, indicating extremely heavy rainfall.

“Intense rainfall activity over Konkan and adjoining ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra is expected to continue till July 14 with gradual reduction thereafter. Widespread rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and isolated extremely heavy rainfall is expected over the region during the above period. Parts of Marathwada and Vidarbha are also very likely to receive widespread rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places,” stated the IMD forecast on Tuesday.

Palghar district in Konkan belt and Nashik district in Madhya Maharashtra are worst affected by the rains. Palghar district saw Jawahar recording 290 mm, Mokheda 270 mm, Talasari 260mm, and Wada 200 mm in the last 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Tuesday. Rainfall above 204.5 mm is categorised as ‘extremely heavy’. Peth in Nashik district recorded 330 mm rainfall in the same period.

Meanwhile, water stocks in the seven lakes that supply drinking water to the city are at 50 per cent of their total capacity of 14.47 lakh million litres. Mumbai draws water from Bhatsa, Middle Vaitarna, Upper Vaitarna, Tansa and Modak Sagar, which are in Thane and Nashik districts. Tulsi and Vihar are two lakes located within city limits in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

Bhatsa lake is the major water supplier to the city and is at 46.37 per cent (3,32,526 million litres) of its capacity. Bhatsa also supplies water to the neighbouring cities of Thane and Bhiwandi. In 24 hours, ending at 6 am on Monday, Bhatsa lake received 125 mm of rain, categorised as ‘very heavy’. In the last 24 hours, all the seven lakes received heavy rainfall. Mumbai gets about 3,900 million litres of water daily from these seven lakes, of which nearly 50 per cent is supplied by Bhatsa.