Mumbai’s August average rain covered in just seven days of the month

The city has already received more rain in just the first seven days of August than it generally receives in the entire month. Rain intensity reduced on Friday,

The city has already received more rain in just the first seven days of August than it generally receives in the entire month. Rain intensity reduced on Friday, with light showers in the suburbs and south Mumbai during the day.

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However, the weather bureau has issued a yellow alert (heavy rain in isolated areas) for next Tuesday, and forecast light to moderate rain from Saturday to Monday.

Against the monthly average of 585.2mm, the Santacruz weather observatory, representative of the suburbs and Mumbai, recorded 600.2mm of rain between August 1 and August 7 (5.30pm). Colaba weather station, representative of south Mumbai, surpassed its monthly average on Wednesday, with 293mm of rain over a 12-hour period and 332mm over 24 hours (Wednesday and Thursday). The rain tally for August for south Mumbai now stands at 682.6mm, against the monthly average of 493.8mm.

KS Hosalikar, deputy director general (western region), India Meteorological Department (IMD), said, “Moderate to heavy rain spells were witnessed in the suburbs and surrounding areas of the Mumbai metropolitan region, more towards the suburbs, Thane and Navi Mumbai, than in south Mumbai, between Thursday and Friday. Models are indicating cloud cover and active monsoon conditions will continue, but [there will be] a drop in rain intensity as compared to earlier in the week. With the likely formation of another low pressure system in the Bay of Bengal around August 9, rains are likely to pick up for the west coast, especially south Konkan, between August 11 and 13.”

By Friday afternoon, the city saw partial sunshine for the first time in five days. Between 8.30am and 8.30pm, Colaba recorded 8mm rain and Santacruz recorded 4.6mm rain.

Water stock across catchment areas, including the seven lakes that supply water to Mumbai, as on August 7 was around 46% of the total water required, with an almost 10% rise in water stock between August 5 and 7.

Meanwhile, the most rainfall since Thursday was recorded at Matheran (178.4 mm), followed by Mahabaleshwar (153mm), Pune (90mm), Harnai (73.4mm), and Thane (65.4mm).

The city can expect cloud cover with the possibility of moderate to heavy rain, with winds in the range of 60 kmph to 70 kmph throughout Friday and moderate showers over the weekend.