Mumbai under orange alert for weekend

A day after a sudden thunderstorm deposited 253mm of rain over the city in just a few hours, Mumbai woke up to a drier, sunnier morning on Saturday

A day after a sudden thunderstorm deposited 253mm of rain over the city in just a few hours, Mumbai woke up to a drier, sunnier morning on Saturday. In contrast to the heavy rain on Friday that left several parts of the western and some parts of the northern and central suburbs waterlogged, India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) monitoring station in Santacruz recorded just 31mm rain in the 24 hours ending 8.30am Saturday followed 9mm through the day.

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IMD had placed Mumbai under a yellow category storm warning for Saturday, indicating moderate rain in the city and suburbs with a possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places.

Mumbai has again been placed under orange category on Sunday and Monday, indicating “heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places”, along with chances of extremely heavy rainfall (over 204.5mm in 24 hours) in some parts.

Independent forecasters agreed that the monsoon will continue to remain active between July 17 and 22. “But I’d be surprised if there are daily heavy rainfall events of a magnitude similar to Friday morning. Models show a low-pressure system over the Bay of Bengal around next mid-week which is stimulating offshore trough and strengthening westerlies, but these conditions may not necessarily trigger torrential downpours daily since there are biases associated with forecasts of low-pressure systems,” explained Akshay Deoras, an independent meteorologist and PhD candidate at the University of Reading.

With seasonal rainfall of the city standing at 1,585mm, Mumbai has recorded around 63% of the seasonal long-period average (up to September-end). In the past week alone, the city has recorded about 475mm of rainfall.

Daily maximum is expected to remain at 31 degrees Celsius over the next two days, up slightly from 29.7 degrees Celsius on Saturday, while minimum temperature is expected to be around 25 degrees Celsius, same as Saturday.