As Mumbai city and its suburbs witnessed moderate to heavy rains between Friday and Saturday with light to moderate showers continuing on Saturday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), on Saturday, afternoon upgraded its rainfall warning to an orange alert (heavy to very heavy rain across isolated areas) for Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Raigad and Ratnagiri rest of Saturday and Sunday.
Meanwhile, the weather bureau issued a yellow alert (heavy rain at isolated areas) for Thane, Palghar and Raigad post Sunday evening, while Mumbai and Ratnagiri could expect light to moderate rain.
"Mumbai and its suburbs received very intense showers as reported from Andheri, Chembur, Thane and Powai, amongst others. Intensity of radar echoes too confirm the same. Mumbai & North Konkan orange alert issued by IMD. Likely to cause floodings in low lying areas and traffic disruption," tweeted KS Hosalikar, deputy director general, western region, IMD.
Between 8.30 am on Friday and 8.30 am on Saturday, the Colaba weather observatory, representative of south Mumbai, recorded 108 mm rain, while the Santacruz observatory, representative of the suburbs, recorded 85.4 mm rain.
According to the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) weather bulletin between 8 am and 5 pm on Saturday, the city received 16.29mm and its eastern suburbs and western suburbs recorded 30.09 mm and 27.40 mm rainfall, respectively.
Location-wise rain figures over the past 24 hours (8.30 am Friday to 8.30 am Saturday) showed 156 mm rain in Chembur, 129 mm rain in Bandra, 142 mm rain in Navi Mumbai, 122.4 mm rain in Panvel, and 84 mm rain in Thane. The IMD classifies 15.6mm to 64.4mm rain as moderate and 64.5mm to 115.5mm rain as heavy.
“Due to the well-marked low pressure system over Madhya Pradesh and the lower-level wind convergence over the northwest region, north Konkan, including Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad is very likely to receive heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places till Sunday morning. Thereafter, the intensity is likely to reduce post afternoon,” said Hosalikar.
Mumbai has so far recorded 1,166.1 mm rain in August, which is the highest since August 1983, when it recorded 1,243.8 mm. The all-time highest August rain of 1,254 mm was recorded in 1958. The maximum city, meanwhile, crossed the 3,000 mm rainfall mark on Friday. Mumbai, currently, recorded 3,038.5 mm rain throughout the season. Both the suburbs and south Mumbai have recorded 61 per cent excess rain so far. The lake level reached 96.51 per cent on Saturday.
IMD concluded that the city and suburbs can expect cloudy conditions with light to moderate rain post Sunday afternoon.
