Mumbai: Even as the wet spell continued on Friday with over 100mm rainfall lashing many parts of the city, India Meteorological Department (IMD) sounded this monsoon’s first ‘red’ alert warning for the weekend across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), forecasting heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy rainfall at isolated locations.The alert comes amid an active monsoon system that is expected to keep rainfall intensity high, starting Saturday. For Monday, an ‘orange’ alert has been issued, indicating heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places, while from Tuesday, a ‘yellow’ alert is in place, indicating the rain spell is expected to ease.A holiday has been declared for schools in Palghar and Thane districts, including Navi Mumbai and Kalyan-Dombivli, for Saturday. Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation has declared a holiday for colleges too.IMD officials said the current heavy rainfall spell is being driven by multiple weather systems, including an offshore trough extending along the Maharashtra-Karnataka coast, a low-pressure area over the northwest Bay of Bengal that is likely to intensify over the next two days, and a shear zone over central India. “Under the influence of these systems, IMD has forecast widespread rainfall across Maharashtra till July 7. Konkan, including Mumbai and adjoining ghat areas, is likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall, with isolated places expected to witness extremely heavy showers,” it said.In the 24-hour period ending Friday 8.30am, IMD’s Colaba observatory recorded 111.8mm rainfall and IMD’s Santacruz observatory 101mm. Between Friday 8.30am and 8.30pm, Colaba logged 56mm rainfall and Santacruz 62.4mm. According to rainfall data from the automatic weather stations across the city, the highest downpour was recorded at Ram Mandir (138.5mm), placing it in the ‘very heavy rainfall category’ as per the IMD rainfall classification.Meanwhile, water stocks in the lakes supplying to Mumbai rose to nearly 1.3 lakh million litres or 8.9% of the total required quantum of 14.47 lakh million litres from 1.2 lakh million litres or 8.1% a day earlier. On July 3, 2025, the total water stock had touched nearly 6.3 lakh million litres or 43.5%.
