The southwest monsoon has finally withdrawn from over Mumbai and its adjoining areas starting Thursday, a four-day delay against its normal date of withdrawal of October 10. The monsoon withdrawal has been completed across the state, said an official from the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
According to the meteorologists at IMD, the withdrawal line, as of Thursday afternoon, persisted over Vengurla in the southernmost part of the Konkan coast and was expected to withdraw entirely by the day.
The monsoon withdrawal in the state began from the easternmost tip of the Vidarbha region between October 9 and 11, subsequently progressed over parts of Marathwada and then the centre of Maharashtra.
"The withdrawal over the Konkan region began on October 12. In 2019 too the withdrawal was recorded in the city from October 14. In 2020, the monsoon’s withdrawal over Mumbai had taken place on October 28, nearly three weeks after the official date, making it the season’s most delayed withdrawal of monsoon since 1975," said an IMD official.
"Monsoon had made a strong onset in Mumbai on June 9, with three occasions when three-digit rainfall in 24 hours was recorded. This year's retreat is with a marginal delay of 4 days from the normal mark of October 10. With the departure, it will be giving way to a marginal rise in day temperature with a partly cloudy sky," said Rajesh Kapadia from Vagaries of Weather, a popular private weather blog.
Skymet Weather, a private weather agency on its website stated: "Monsoon retreats from the financial capital from October 14 against the normal date of October 10. A standard deviation of about one week is considered reasonable for an otherwise four months-long season."
"Prior to 2019, the withdrawal date for Mumbai was October 1. However, as per revised dates, based on data from 1960-2019, the withdrawal has been fixed on October 10. Invariably, the city has been overstepping even the new date, sometimes with a big margin. The earliest withdrawal of monsoon from Mumbai was on September 23 in 1963 and the most delayed one was recorded on October 28 in 2020,"experts at Skymet said.
IMD has forecast that the day temperature is likely to touch 35 degrees Celsius by the end of the week. Meanwhile, on Friday, the maximum temperature recorded was 34.8 and 33.2 degrees Celsius at Santacruz and Colaba observatories respectively. While the relative humidity (RH) has been 80 % and 83 % at Santacruz and Colaba observatories respectively.
On Thursday, the day temperature was 34.8 degrees Celsius, a degree above normal and the night/minimum temperature was two degrees above normal at 25.6 degrees Celsius. The RH was also high on Thursday morning at 83%.
