Monsoon arrives in state, touches Konkan

MUMBAI: The southwest monsoon arrived in Maharashtra on Friday, covering the town of Vengurla at the southernmost tip of the Konkan coast, three days after the normal onset date of June 7.

Officials in the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional forecasting centre in Mumbai said that conditions are favourable for the monsoon to progress further north over the next two days, covering more parts of the state, including southern Madhya Maharashtra.

However, the arrival of the monsoon in Mumbai is not expected before June 13. The city recorded 15.5mm rainfall in 24 hours, ending 8:30am on Friday, as widespread pre-monsoon showers were recorded across the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region. As a result, the city also saw a drop in temperature, with Friday’s minimum reading dropping to 25 degrees Celsius, down from 29.5 degrees Celsius on

Wednesday, which was the second-highest minimum temperature recorded in a decade.

The IMD has issued a yellow category weather alert for Mumbai on Saturday, June 11, indicating high chances of thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds of around 35kmph at isolated places. Parts of central and south Mumbai on Friday night also witnessed the city’s first premonsoon thunderstorm of the season. The usual onset date for the city is June 11. By June 9 last year, the city had already recorded over 100mm of rain, as the monsoon had also arrived earlier than usual. “It is not surprising to see this activity. The moisture has gone up, atmosphere is unstable and you have a lot of daytime heating, so conditions are ideal for such thunderstorm development,” said Akshay Deoras, an independent meteorologist and PHD candidate at the University of Reading, UK. He added, “The monsoon will reach Mumbai in the next week, but the arrival doesn’t appear to be robust this time.”