The maximum city, Mumbai, was brought to its knees after two days of heavy rain. Now, reports say that the city is likely to receive heavy rainfall today as well.
According to Hindustan Times, for Saturday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a ‘yellow alert’ (be updated) for Mumbai and an ‘orange alert’ (district authorities to be prepared) for Thane and Palghar. Meanwhile, IMD’s Doppler radar remained dysfunctional for the second consecutive day on Friday. “The technical glitch is being addressed by our engineering team,” an IMD official told the leading daily.
The radar located at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Colaba can carry out weather surveillance at a distance of 300 km radius from its location. The radar provides long-range weather surveillance, detection and forecast for rainfall, cloud formation, thunderstorms and other weather conditions such as tropical storms.
This is not the first time the radar has stopped working this monsoon after a similar instance on July 10. For the third time this monsoon, pouring rains brought the country's commercial capital to a standstill with total disruption in road and rail traffic and flights on Wednesday. Earlier, Mumbai had been brought to its knees on July 2-3 and August 3-4 when heavy rains clobbered the city, claiming nearly three dozen lives in various rain-related incidents. A renewed bout of rains had started lashing the Mumbai Metropolitan Region since Monday, and the city itself collapsed in the less than 18 hours of overnight rains since Tuesday evening.
