The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow alert for Mumbai till August 26. According to the predicting the city is going to see moderate rainfall activity during the weekend, which may stretch till next week.
Mumbai’s Regional Meteorological Centre predicted that the financial capital and its suburbs may receive heavy to very heavy rains in the next 24 hours. Occasional gusty winds can reach 30-40 kmph while the maximum and minimum temperatures will be remain between 30 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius.
“There is a low-pressure area and an offshore trough, causing heavy rains over the city,” said Sushma Nair, scientist at IMD. “As of now, we have issued a yellow alert, but we will update it as necessary.”
In the 24 hours to 8:30 am on August 24, Colaba had recorded 14 mm and Santacruz 59 mm. Due to the rains, the temperature across the city saw a dip; the maximum at Colaba touched 27.5 degrees Celsius and in Santacruz at 27.8 degrees Celsius.
The city has now logged 2,361 mm of rain since the onset of monsoon, surpassing the season’s average rainfall quota (2,319 mm) on August 24 evening. The total stock in the seven lakes supplying water to Mumbai surpassed 95 percent of the total capacity on Saturday morning, with water levels swelling to 95.27 percent.
Of the total rain recorded so far, the city has registered 311 mm rain in August, while 2,050 mm rain was recorded in June and July.
Meanwhile, IMD's regional centre in Pune issued a red alert for very heavy rains in Maharashtra’s Raigad for August 25. Additionally, it also issued a heavy rainfall alert for Pune, Nagpur, Palghar, Thane and Ratnagiri.
The centre also predicted of heavy rainfall alerts in the Nagpur and Mumbai region for the next five days.
A red alert for extremely heavy rainfall was issued for Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune and Satara warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall. Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and suburbs are under yellow alert for heavy rainfall.
The IMD has also issued an orange alert for some districts of Konkan and western Maharashtra on August 25 and 26 as well.