Mumbai weather: Heavy rain, dust storm lash parts of city

Mumbai weather today: The sudden change in weather brought traffic to a standstill in the city.

Mumbai weather today: Mumbai witnessed heavy rainfall accompanied by a massive dust storm around 3pm on Monday.

Mumbai weather: Heavy rainfall batters Mumbai (HT Photo/Raju Shinde)

Apart from Mumbai, neighbouring cities Thane and Satara also witnessed heavy rains. The Mumbai Airport runway was also closed from 3.57 pm due to bad visibility. Flight operations remained suspended for around 66 min due to low visibility and gusty winds. Operations resumed at 17:03 hrs. During this time, the airport witnessed 15 diversions.

“Thunderstorm accompanied with lightning and light to moderate spells of rain with gusty winds reaching 40-50 kmph very likely to occur at isolated places in the districts of Mumbai during next 3-4 hours. Take precautions while moving out," the India Meteorological Department said.

Metro services were suspended between Aarey and Andheri East metro stations after a banner landed on the overheard wire due to strong winds, a spokesperson from Metro Rail said. Meanwhile, suburban services on Central Railway were affected after an overhead equipment pole between Thane and Mulund stations bent due to strong winds.

Meanwhile, an orange alert has been issued for regions including Pune, Satara, Sangli, Nashik, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna and Parbhani districts.

While the showers brought some respite from the scorching heat, power outages were reported in Kalwa in the Thane district and other areas. 8 people were found dead, while dozens got injured as an iron hoarding collapsed in the Ghatkopar area of Mumbai amid rain and gusty winds.

Here's RMC's forecast for Mumbai for Tuesday:

Mumbai: Isolated pockets of Mumbai are likely to experience hot and humid conditions.

Thane and Palghar: Heat waves are very likely in isolated pockets in Thane and Palghar. However, there's a possibility of rain or thundershowers towards evening.

Raigad: Thunderstorms accompanied by lightning & gusty winds (30-40kmph) will be witnessed at isolated places.

Speaking about rainfall in the city, the head of IMD Mumbai, Sunil Kamble, said earlier, “There is a lot of thunderstorm activity ongoing over Madhya Maharashtra, contributed due to the interaction of winds and a trough… This will contribute to very light rains over Mumbai.”

The maximum temperature recorded at Santacruz was 33.6 degrees Celsius on Friday, while Colaba recorded 34.5 degrees Celsius. The minimum temperatures were 26.8 degrees Celsius and 26.2 degrees Celsius respectively.