IMD predicts drop in intensity, but city sees heavy showers
MUMBAI: Contrary to the weather bureau’s forecast of reduced intensity of rain on Tuesday, the city saw moderate to heavy showers while a few spells of intense showers were witnessed in the suburbs.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) updated its original forecast from ‘light to moderate rain’ to a yellow alert (heavy rain across isolated areas) on Tuesday afternoon. While no alert has been issued for Wednesday, IMD issued a yellow alert and predicted heavy rain from Thursday to Saturday.
On Tuesday, a Nowcast warning for intense rain spells for Mumbai, Thane, and Satara districts was issued at 2 pm. The suburbs recorded an intense rain spell of 30mm between 11.30 pm and 2.30 pm. Between 8.30am and 8.30pm Tuesday, the Santacruz weather station, representative of the suburbs and Mumbai, recorded 46.4 mm rain while Colaba, representative of south
Mumbai, recorded 50.6 mm.
For the season so far, Mumbai suburbs have received 972 mm rain from June 1 to July 7 at 5.30pm and is just 28 mm short of the 1,000-mm mark while south Mumbai has received 991mm rain during the same time. While Mumbai has already received 69% of its July average rain, 42% of the seasonal average rainfall has been received over five weeks. “Monsoon conditions are active along the west coast. Under the influence of a well-marked low-pressure area near the Saurashtra-kutch region, rain intensity over north Konkan including the Mumbai region increased on Tuesday. The weather system is influencing strong westerly winds, which is pulling a lot of moisture from the Arabian Sea and strengthening the offshore trough extending from Gujarat to north Kerala coast,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director-general, western region, IMD.
Almost a month after the onset of monsoon, the water stock in city’s seven lakes finally saw a significant increase of 3%in the past two days. The rise in the lake levels was witnessed after heavy downpour in the catchment areas between July 5 and 6. The total water quantum in the seven lakes has gone up to 1.60 lakh million litre which is 11.10% of the required water stock from 1.15 lakh million litre (7.98%) of water stock two days ago. The total storage capacity of these lakes is 14.47 lakh million litre.
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