Monsoon to intensify over weekend in Mumbai

After a prolonged dry spell, the city received 17mm rain over nine hours on Thursday, the highest in the past 10 days

After a prolonged dry spell, the city received 17mm rain over nine hours on Thursday, the highest in the past 10 days. With the southwest monsoon growing stronger over the Arabian Sea and with a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal expected to form around July 11, enhanced rainfall activity is likely over both the west and east coasts in the next five days, as per the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

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“Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall” is expected till at least July 12 over the Konkan coast, indicating that more than 75% of monitoring stations are expected to receive some measure of rain with high changes of thundershowers and occasional intense spells of heavy rain in isolated locations. Westerly winds of speeds between 10 and 15 knots, gusting to 20 knots, have been forecast.

“The synoptic situation is once again favourable for rains, and we will see a revival of monsoon over the next week. Mumbai has been placed under a yellow category storm warning alert on Friday, Sunday and Monday. There may be waterlogging in some areas. Till Tuesday, Mumbai may get up to 300mm of rain,” said a spokesperson with the IMD’s regional forecasting centre in Mumbai.

An independent forecaster predicted that Mumbai may get between 250mm to 400mm of rain by Tuesday, with 250mm being a “conservative estimate”.

Normal to above normal rainfall is expected till around July 18, after at least a week of “large deficient” rains, as per rainfall data available on IMD’s website. From July 1 to July 7, Mumbai received only 25.7mm of rain, which marks a negative 88% departure from the seasonal normal of 221.8mm.

Rainfall will be accompanied by a dip in temperature. While daytime maximum temperature stood at 31.4 degrees Celsius on Thursday, a consistent decline is predicted touching 29 degrees Celsius on July 14. The minimum temperature on Thursday stood at 26.6 degrees Celsius and will settle at around 24 degrees Celsius on July 14, as per IMD’s seven-day forecast for the automatic weather station in Santacruz.