Mumbai meets 30% of monsoon rainfall target in three days

After receiving the second-highest daily rainfall of the ongoing monsoon season on Sunday, the city has recorded a total of 1,811mm of rain since June 1

After receiving the second-highest daily rainfall of the ongoing monsoon season on Sunday, the city has recorded a total of 1,811mm of rain since June 1. This accounts for just over 85% of the seasonal normal up to end September, which stands at 2,205mm, as per the India Meteorological Department (IMD). However, up to July 15, the city had received only 58.7% of this amount. Thus, in the last three days alone Mumbai has received a total of 661.5mm of rain, thus meeting the 30% monsoon rainfall target.

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IMD data shows an increasing frequency of high-intensity rainfall events in Mumbai in the past 10 years. Of seven such incidents, three have occurred since 2019, and two of these in the past three days alone. Though experts said that further investigation is required before conclusively linking such incidents to climate change, they agreed that anthropogenic warming in the environment may very likely have a role to play.

“Enough studies have shown that a warming atmosphere means more availability of moisture. A warming ocean and earth’s surface essentially provides convective weather systems with more energy to intensify rapidly. Moreover, peninsular India is expected to get more rainfall as a result of climate change-related processes, and this can also be seen clearly in the current monsoon. From Gujarat to West MP, East MP, Haryana and Punjab, they show significant deficient rainfall so far. But that’s not the case with southern Indian meteorological subdivisions,” said Dr JR Kulkarni, retired meteorologist from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, which is under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The intense spell of rain early Sunday also helped Mumbai surpass the seasonal normal for the month of July alone, which stands at 827mm. As of 5.30pm on Sunday, the city has received 849.6mm of rain (in July).

However, despite receiving 235mm of rain in the 24 hours ending 8.30am on Sunday, the city received only a meagre 2.8mm in the subsequent eight hours, contrary to IMD’s announcement of a red alert for the city. Mumbai is currently placed under an orange category storm alert up to July 22.

Dr Jayanta Sarkar, head of IMD’s regional forecasting centre in Mumbai, said that there will be widespread distribution of rainfall across the Konkan coast, with a very likely chance of “extremely heavy rain at isolated places,” over the next five days.