After negligible rain for second day, IMD downgrades rain alert for MMR for rest of week

The weather bureau’s heavy rain warnings for the city over the week turned out to be a miss. The city and suburbs recorded negligible rain during the day and only

The weather bureau’s heavy rain warnings for the city over the week turned out to be a miss. The city and suburbs recorded negligible rain during the day and only moderate overnight showers from Morning to Wednesday.

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The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued an orange alert (heavy to very heavy rain) for Mumbai, Thane and Palghar for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but as days went by the warnings were downgraded. On Wednesday afternoon, IMD revised it’s prediction to only light to moderate showers for the rest of the week.

“Weather models had indicated the possibility of heavy rain but owing to unfavourable wind pattern over the Mumbai region, the intensity of monsoon currents weakened,” said an IMD official. “However, the currents were much stronger over south Konkan districts that recorded heavy to very heavy rain.”

Between 8.30 am and 8.30 pm Wednesday, 0.5 mm was recorded in Mumbai suburbs while 0.4 mm was recorded in south Mumbai. Between 8.30 Tuesday and 8.30 am Wednesday, the suburbs recorded 0.8 mm while 14.4 mm was recorded in south Mumbai.

Independent meteorologists said there hadn’t been any proper meteorological conditions for triggering widespread heavy to very heavy rainfall in Mumbai. “The wind pattern on 16 and 17 June was influenced by a low-pressure circulation over the Arabian Sea, which triggered a lot of rainfall in Konkan, but kept clouds away from Mumbai. This is common during monsoon. However, official alerts and other weather forecasts for 16-17 June were influenced by model predictions, which are often inaccurate whenever a low-pressure circulation happens to come near Mumbai,” said Akshay Deoras, PhD researcher at the University of Reading, UK.