IMD’s yellow alert: MMR is likely to get heavy rain on Tuesday

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) witnessed an increase in rain intensity from Monday night which may continue throughout Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) witnessed an increase in rain intensity from Monday night which may continue throughout Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday. The weather bureau has predicted heavy rain and thundershowers across isolated areas in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) for Tuesday.

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A yellow alert (be updated for heavy rain) has been issued for MMR and remaining areas of the Konkan coast.

Mumbai may witness thunderstorms accompanied by lightning, gusty winds and heavy rain at isolated areas, while Thane and Palghar may experience thunderstorms with lightning. While no warnings were issued for Wednesday and Thursday, heavy rain at isolated places has been predicted for Friday (July 3). Meanwhile, a red alert (very heavy rain warning) has been issued for Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg from July 3 onwards.

As predicted by IMD, parts of south and central Mumbai received intense thundershowers late evening on Monday with an average of over 40 mm rain, which falls under the ‘rather heavy’ category between 9.30pm and 10.30pm.

According to location-wise rain figures (from automatic weather stations of IMD), within a span of an hour, the maximum rain was recorded at Dadar at 70.1 mm followed by Parel at 63 mm, Prabhadevi, 61 mm, Worli 58.4 mm, Sewri 51 mm, Byculla 41 mm, Dharavi 24 mm, Bandra 17 mm.

“Cloud bands moved from northern suburbs over the city and further towards the coast, allowing intense localised thundershowers in isolated areas in northern and western suburbs followed by heavy rain in south-central Mumbai,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general, western region, IMD. “Monsoon systems do have embedded mesoscale systems (microclimate characteristics), which give intense rainfall at highly localised places,” he added.

Earlier between 8.30am on Sunday and 8.30am on Monday, the Santacruz weather station, representative of the suburbs, recorded 39.4 mm rain which falls under the ‘rather heavy rain’ category, while 33.6 mm rain (moderate) was recorded at Colaba, representative of south Mumbai. IMD classifies 7.6 mm-35.5 mm rain as moderate and 35.6 mm-64.4 mm as rather heavy rain.

Between 5.30pm and 8.30pm on Monday, light to moderate rain was recorded across several areas in northwestern suburbs including 27 mm rain in Dindoshi, 18 mm Goregaon, 14 mm Borivli, 12 mm Kandivli, and 19 mm in Kalyan-Dombivli. Santacruz weather station recorded traces of rain while no rain was recorded in south Mumbai.

“A cyclonic circulation over west central Arabian Sea combined with a feeble offshore trough from Karnataka to Kerala coast is allowing moisture incursions and westerly wind pattern over the Konkan coast, allowing marginal increase in rain activity. This is likely to enhance monsoon currents through the week,” said an official from IMD.

Meanwhile, with rather heavy rain over the past 24 hours, Mumbai has so far recorded 383.8 mm rain against the monthly average of 493.1 mm, which continues to be the lowest June rainfall in five years.

On Monday, the day temperature in the city and suburbs was 1.1 degree Celsius above normal while the night temperature was close to the normal mark. South Mumbai recorded 92% humidity while 85% was recorded in the suburbs.