Mumbai: Mumbai woke up to a wet Monday with the IMD Santacruz observatory —considered the city’s benchmark—logging July’s first triple digit rainfall of 114.6mm in 24 hours ending 8.30am. The quantum rose to 201.2mm over the next nine hours. In stark contrast, the Colaba station recorded just 11.2mm till 8.30am and another 8.4mm till 5.30pm. Many places, like Andheri subway and parts of Western Express Highway, got waterlogged early in the day. The downpour continued through the day. Between 8.30am and 2.30pm, areas like Bandra, Juhu and Santacruz recorded over 50mm of rainfall. The sudden spike in rainfall prompted IMD to upgrade its forecast for the day to an orange alert—indicating heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated locations—for Mumbai, Thane and Raigad. It has issued a yellow alert for moderate to heavy rain for Tuesday. Although July is typically Mumbai’s wettest month, the city had seen scattered showers so far. The heavy rain led to an improvement in the city’s lake levels, with the total water stock touching 12 lakh million litres—around 83% of Mumbai’s annual requirement. The huge variance in island city and suburbs’ rainfall likely stems from Mumbai’s topography and wind patterns, experts have said. The suburbs have more hilly and forested areas, like Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Aarey Colony, as well as large water bodies, and northwesterly winds over Arabian Sea during the monsoon push the cloud band from Borivli to Goregoan to Powai, Thane, Kalyan and beyond. The island city has less green cover and more built-up structures, and gets cloud bands from the southwest, which shed moisture overAlibaug, Pen, Murud and the ghats before arriving in south Mumbai. The weather bureau has predicted heavy rain till Sunday across Maharashtra owing to evolving weather systems, including a likely low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal. “Expect widespread heavy to very heavy showers in Konkan and ghat areas, scattered rains in Marathwada, and occasional gusty winds with lightning,” it said in a statement. It said strong winds reaching 40-50kmph, gusting up to 60kmph, are likely along and off the north Maharashtra coast till Friday and advised fisherfolk against venturing into the sea.
