108mm rain in Sobo; showers to continue

MUMBAI:THE city and suburbs witnessed heavy rain between Friday and Saturday with continuous light to moderate showers with intermittent heavy spells.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) updated its yellow alert (heavy rain in isolated areas) to orange alert (heavy to very heavy rain in isolated areas) on Saturday afternoon for the rest of the day. Sporadic spells of moderate showers were witnessed till Saturday evening. Light to moderate rain has been predicted for Sunday.

Between 8.30am Friday and 8.30am Saturday, Colaba weather observatory, representative of south Mumbai, recorded 108mm rain while Santacruz observatory, representative of the suburbs, recorded 85.4mm rainfall. On Saturday between 8.30am and 5.30pm, the suburbs recorded 28mm rain while 17mm was recorded in south Mumbai. IMD classifies 15.6mm-64.4mm as moderate and 64.5mm-115.5mm rain as heavy.

The weather bureau said the city and suburbs could witness moderate to heavy rain with a possibility of very heavy rain across isolated areas between Saturday night and Sunday morning. “Mumbai and surrounding areas saw intermittent intense showers from Saturday morning. Radar and satellite images indicated dense cloud development and possibility of very heavy rain in some areas over north Konkan. Thus, an orange alert was issued,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general, western region, IMD. He added, “Rain intensity in some low-lying areas had the potential to cause flooding.”

Location-wise figures over the past 24 hours (8.30am Friday to 8.30am Saturday) showed 156mm rainfall in Chembur, 129mm in Bandra, 142mm in Navi Mumbai, 122.4mm in Panvel, and 84mm in Thane. Since Friday, eastern suburbs, Thane and Palghar districts recorded more rain.

Mumbai has so far recorded 1,169.1 mm rain in August, which is the highest since 1983 when 1,243.8mm rain was recorded.