Isolated heavy rain likely in Mumbai on Wednesday: IMD

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that isolated heavy showers are likely to continue on Wednesday, placing Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts under a ‘yellow category’ storm warning alert

The monsoon made a comeback in the city this week, with an overcast sky, strong winds and widespread rain (along with isolated heavy showers) being observed across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) on Tuesday evening. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that isolated heavy showers are likely to continue on Wednesday, placing Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts under a ‘yellow category’ storm warning alert.

Waterlogging on the road near Nitin Company junction after heavy rain continued to batter Mumbai and suburban areas on Tuesday. (HT PHOTO)

Though the day started off without much rain (the IMD’s monitoring station in Santacruz received 6.6mm of rain during the night), the intensity of showers picked up for a short while in the afternoon, with Santacruz receiving 37.2mm of rain in the nine hours ending 5:30pm Tuesday. Several other monitoring locations in the city and suburbs, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan-Dombivli, too saw between 20mm to 40mm of rain in a three-hour period on Tuesday afternoon.

According to a spokesperson with the IMD’s regional centre in Mumbai, widespread light to moderate rains will continue for the next two days in intermittent spells and will subside thereafter. A low-pressure area is expected to pass over the Bay of Bengal sometime early next week, and rainfall activity will regain intensity around then, IMD said.

In September thus far, the city has recorded a total of 536mm of rain in 21 days, as against the normal of 229.7mm. Since June 1 this year, 2,958mm of rain has exceeded the seasonal normal by 849.6mm. Officials at the IMD said it is very likely that seasonal rains may cross the 3,000mm mark by the end of September, particularly as the expected late withdrawal of the monsoon this year will sustain more light to moderate showers before the month is over. Between June and September last year, the city had recorded a total 3,687mm of rain, stopping just 70mm short of 2020 being the wettest monsoon on record.