South Mumbai wet, suburbs wetter as rain makes a comeback

Mumbai city news: The weather bureau said heavy to very heavy rain is expected till Sunday

Mumbai woke up to heavy rainfall on Friday with suburbs recording more rain than south Mumbai.

Children bow their heads and brave the rain at Carter Road in Bandra on Friday. (Satish Bate/HT)

While Mumbai recorded moderate rain, areas around the city such as Thane, Palghar, Panvel and Raigad recorded heavy rain.

Between 8.30am and 8.30pm, the weather station at Santacruz, representative of the suburbs, recorded 41mm rain while Colaba, representative of south Mumbai, recorded only 9.8mm of rain.

The weather bureau said heavy to very heavy rain is expected till Sunday on the entire north Konkan coast, including Mumbai.

“Several areas in north Konkan received widespread rain on Friday. The weather system — a well-marked low pressure area – over south Gujarat is pulling a lot of moisture over the coastline,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director, western region, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).

Other officials from the weather department said more rain was expected in the coming week.

“After a week-long dry spell, there are active monsoon conditions along the west coast. There are two upper-air circulations, one over north Arabian Sea and the other developing over Bay of Bengal. This will lead to good rain over both coasts and central India, south of Uttar Pradesh,” said Dr KJ Ramesh, director, IMD.

On Friday, Matheran recorded the highest rain in the state at 78mm followed by Thane and Bhiwandi, both of which recorded 40mm rain.

Between 8.30am on Thursday and 8.30am Friday, Santacruz recorded 26.3mm rain while Colaba recorded 30.8mm. In the same period, Bhira in north Konkan recorded the heaviest rain in the state at 178mm, followed by Mahabaleshwar at 105mm, Nasik 72mm and Harnai 52mm.

From June 1, Santacruz has recorded 743.4mm rainfall, which is 152.3 mm below normal, and Colaba’s record says south Mumbai has got 634.3 mm rainfall, 279.3 mm below normal.

Meanwhile, while the night temperature was a degree Celsius below normal, both at Santacruz and Colaba, the day temperature was close to normal in suburbs at 30.5 degrees Celsius and a degree Celsius below normal in south Mumbai at 29.4 degrees Celsius.