Mumbai: At 37.4 degrees Celsius, May temperature hits 10 year high

With the maximum daytime temperature on Saturday settling at 37

With the maximum daytime temperature on Saturday settling at 37.4 degrees Celsius — up from 34.5 degrees Celsius the day prior —Mumbai recorded its hottest day in May, in a decade. The city had earlier recorded a temperature of 36.1 degrees Celsius on May 3, which until Saturday was the highest reading since 2016. Officials attributed Saturday’s sudden rise in mercury to the dense cloud cover that has been forming over the city since Thursday.

HT Image

“As a result of weather activity due to Cyclone Tauktae, there is a dense cloud cover which has formed over the Konkan coast, and which is acting as a heat trap. Hot air is unable to rise beyond a certain height and this pushes up the atmospheric temperature closer to the earth’s surface. But this phenomenon should reduce significantly toward Sunday evening once it rains,” said a meteorologist with the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional forecasting centre in Mumbai.

As per IMD’s seven-day forecast for its automatic weather station in Santacruz, the maximum daytime temperature on May 16 may drop to as little as 31 degrees Celsius, falling further to 30 degree Celsius on May 17 — which would mark the city’s lowest daytime May temperature in 10 years. Generally, cloudy skies with moderate to heavy rain at isolated locations in Mumbai, Thane and Palghar are expected to prevail during this period. Wind speeds are likely to be between 35 to 50kmph.

At 7pm on Saturday, IMD’s regional forecasting Centre in Mumbai reported that Cyclone Tauktae was located about 250kms off the coast of Goa. It is expected to cross Mumbai’s latitude late Sunday, at a distance of 300 to 350kms from the coast. Parts of south Maharashtra — including Ratnagiri and Raigad in the Konkan belt — began to heavy rains on Saturday itself, however, officials said that the impact on Mumbai and the north Konkan belt will be minimised by the cyclone’s movement toward Gujarat, where it is expected to make landfall between Kutch and Gir Somnath around May 18.