Mumbai and adjoining woke up to cloudy skies and rainfall on Saturday morning. However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in its 24-hour forecast has predicted moderate rain in city and suburbs with possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places..
The IMD on Saturday said that the island city, eastern suburbs and western suburbs recorded 33.79 mm, 56.26 mm and 52.35 mm rain, respectively, in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, a high tide of 3.89 metres is expected at 1709 hr in Mumbai today. Also, a low tide of 1.33 metres is likely to occur at 2334 hrs today.
When there is a high tide during the rainy season, it becomes difficult for the flooded water to recede. Low tide helps floodwaters in the city to find an outlet to enter the seas.
As heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs, the Tulsi lake, one of the seven reservoirs supplying drinking water to the metropolis, overflowed on Friday, an official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
As per a release issued by the civic body, Tulsi lake situated in Sanjay Gandhi National Park in suburban Mumbai, started overflowing around 11 am.
Tulsi is the smallest of the seven reservoirs that supply potable water to Mumbai, and has a storage capacity of 8,046 million litres. The city gets 18 million litres of water from the lake every day.
"The catchment area of the lake has been receiving rainfall in the last few days, as a result of which the lake overflowed during the day," the civic official said, adding that this year the lake has overflowed a little earlier compared to last year.
When the Tulsi lake overflows, its water goes into the Vihar lake.
Apart from Tulsi and Vihar, the city receives water from Bhatsa, Tansa, Lower and Middle Vaitarna dams all located in Thane district, and Upper Vaitarna dam located in Nashik district.
According to the BMC, the dams in Thane and Nashik districts have limited water stock, due to poor rainfall in the catchment area.
(With inputs from agencies)
