Met predicts heavy rainfall at isolated places in Mumbai, Raigad and Thane on Wednesday

MUMBAI: Weathermen have issued an 'orange' alert for Mumbai, Raigad and Thane for Wednesday, with heavy to very heavy rain forecast at isolated places. While a 'red' alert signifies the text 'warning (take action)', orange and yellow signify 'alert' and 'watch' respectively. The downpour is expected to continue till Wednesday, after which the wet spell may remain, but the intensity may reduce, they added.
IMD officials said a strong revival of monsoon resulted in very heavy rain at 23 places in Konkan and Goa over the 24 hours ending 8.30am on Tuesday. Several locations in Konkan recorded triple-digit rainfall over the period, including Thane-Belapur (190mm), Uran (170mm) and Ratnagiri and Thane (140mm).
In keeping with this season's trend of heavy rain in the first week of the month, several parts of Mumbai witnessed significant activity on Monday and Tuesday. While the IMD Colaba observatory crossed the 2000-mm rainfall mark on Tuesday evening, in the Navi Mumbai municipal region, 164.75mm rainfall from 8.30am on Monday till 5.30pm on Tuesday, pushed the area's season's total to 3373.41mm, the highest since 2005.
Anupam Kashyapi, head of weather, IMD Pune, told TOI that there was significant clouding over Maharashtra on Tuesday with strong westerlies coming from the Arabian Sea. "We expect the rainfall activity to reduce from September 5 in Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha, but Konkan would continue to remain on isolated heavy rain warning till September 6-7," he said.
Weathermen said multiple weather systems are giving Mumbai heavy rain. "There is a cyclonic circulation over the Gujarat region and wind sheer zone is extending from North Konkan and Goa near Mumbai to North Bay of Bengal, which is also enhancing the surge. There is also a low pressure area over Orissa which will move in that westerly direction... Till Wednesday, a few heavy spells are expected to continue and thereafter the intensity will reduce," said Mahesh Palawat, vice-president, meteorology & climate change, Skymet.
In the 24-hour period ending Tuesday 8.30am, the Santacruz observatory recorded 131.4mm of rainfall and the Colaba observatory 80mm. And in the 12-hour period ending Tuesday 8.30pm, the Santacruz observatory recorded 53.4mm rainfall and the Colaba observatory 68mm. The season's total rainfall recorded by the Colaba observatory till Tuesday 5.30pm was 2011mm.
This monsoon, most of the intense rain activity in July and August was recorded in the first week of the month. In the 24-hour period between July 1-2, the suburbs recorded 375mm of rainfall, and in August, 78.2% of the month's required rainfall was received till August 5, after which it was comparatively dry. The required August rainfall is 585.2mm.