Mumbai sees heaviest rains in over two weeks

Parts of the city’s northern suburbs, in addition to Thane and Navi Mumbai, experienced isolated heavy showers, recording between 40 to 70mm of rain in 24 hours ending 8.30am on Sunday

After a prolonged dry spell lasting more than two weeks, Mumbai received its heaviest showers of August on Sunday. In the 24 hours ending at 8.30am, the city’s automatic weather station at Santacruz recorded 25.6mm of rain (considered to be ‘moderate’), while Colaba recorded heavier showers with 42.8mm of rain in the same period.

Woman dressed in tricolour walks in rain at Thakur Village, Kandivli. (Vijay Bate/HT)

Parts of the city’s northern suburbs, in addition to Thane and Navi Mumbai, experienced isolated heavy showers, recording between 40 to 70mm of rain in 24 hours ending 8.30am on Sunday. Bhayander saw the heaviest showers as per data from the IMD’s mesonet system, with 69.5mm of rain. Moderate to intense intermittent spells of rains over the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) continued till about 2pm, before petering out toward the evening. Experts and officials attributed the revival to an upper air cyclonic circulation forming over the Bay of Bengal, which has helped to activate a monsoon trough along the Maharashtra coast and strengthened rain-bearing westerly winds.

“As we had predicted earlier this month, we are starting to see signs of a monsoon revival over the Konkan coast. The next two weeks will see higher chances of moderate to heavy rains. Over Mumbai, rains are expected to be moderate for the next three days at least. When the circulation over the Bay of Bengal intensifies into a low-pressure area, we will get heavy rains again in about four to five days,” said a meteorologist with the IMD’s regional centre in Mumbai.

Mumbai has been placed under a ‘green’ category weather alert till August 19, indicating chances of light-moderate rain, which will be scattered and isolated. More widespread rain is expected around August 19. The maximum and minimum temperatures, for the next week, are expected to remain around 30 degrees Celsius and 24 degrees Celsius respectively.