Pune experiences wettest June in past seven years

Pune: The 54.6mm of rain during a sharp spell on Monday made this June the wettest for the city in the past seven years since 2013.
It pushed Pune’s monthly rain quota beyond 200mm for the month to 221.7mm — the highest June rain quantum for Shivajinagar since 2014. Lohegaon recorded 284.3mm rain this June and Pashan got 159.2mm. All three places recorded excess rain this month.
A typical feature of June in 2019 and 2020 has been the sharp showers during the fag end of the month — not only filling Pune’s monthly rain quota but also taking it beyond the 200-plus mm mark.
Anupam Kashyapi, head of weather, IMD, Pune, told TOI, “It all began with the severe cyclonic storm Nisarga even before monsoon arrived in the city. The rainfall during the first six days of June in Lohegaon was almost twice the normal volume for the entire month of June due to Nisarga, while that in Shivajinagar had then reached 71% of the total normal rain quantum for the entire month.”
He said, “The normal date of monsoon onset in Pune is June 12, while the actual onset occurred around June 14 this time. This was a near-normal onset. This means that monsoon arrived in the city much before it did past few years in June, when it was characterised by delays. This helped Pune lap up a good volume of monsoon rain during the first fortnight of June.”
Kashyapi said throughout the month, one or another system existed over Marathwada and Madhya Maharashtra with strong westerly winds flowing from the Arabian Sea. At the same time when the rain lessened on some days during the later part of the month, high day temperatures in the city with high relative humidity resulted in local convective activity and thundershowers.