Monsoon keeps its date with city
MUMBAI: The southwest monsoon arrived in the city on Saturday, June 11, meeting its normal onset date. The India Meteorological Department (IMD)’S monitoring station in Santacruz recorded 41.3mm rain in the 24 hours ending at 8.30am on Saturday, as pre-monsoon showers intensified under unstable weather conditions.
The IMD’S Colaba observatory recorded 61.8mm rain in the same duration. IMD classifies heavy rain between 64.5mm and 124.4mm, while moderate rainfall is in the range of 7.6mm to 35.5mm.
Generally cloudy conditions with light to moderate spells of rain or thundershowers are likely to prevail, as per forecasts. The IMD has sounded a yellow category alert for Mumbai on Sunday, indicating high chances of thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds of around 35kmph at isolated places. Dried conditions are expected from June 15.
Experts and IMD officials had predicted a marginally delayed onset of the monsoon this year, with wind conditions being unfavourable for its northward progress after arriving in Kerala on May 29. The monsoon’s progress had stalled since May 20. It reached Andaman and Nicobar Islands a week ahead of its usual date on May 16 but slowed down after that, arriving in Maharashtra only on June 10. “Wind conditions have changed since then. The progress of the monsoon in the last 24 hours has become rapid, but this is not uncommon,” said KS Hosalikar, head of the IMD’S surface instrument division in Pune. “Westerly and south-westerly winds, which are essential for transporting rain-bearing clouds over the Konkan coast, were very weak. They have picked up speed since Tuesday. There is also an offshore trough, or low-pressure area, quite close to Mumbai, which creates a favourable gradient for moisture to travel from over the Arabian Sea,” Hosalikar added.