Mumbai: After incessant rain since Tuesday afternoon, Mumbai recorded its highest 24-hour September rainfall for the decade, and second highest all-time high September day rain for the city.
The city received 331mm of rain between 8.30 a.m. on August 29 and 8.30 a.m. on August 30. Santacruz weather station, representative of the suburbs and Mumbai, recorded 303.7mm, and Colaba, representative of south Mumbai, recorded 210mm rain, which is the highest for south Mumbai this monsoon season.
The city was just 14.5mm short of recording the all-time high 24 hour September rainfall at 318.2mm recorded on September 12, 1981.
Mumbai’s average rainfall for September is 312.3mm, which was surpassed over the past 24 hours. Currently, the city has recorded 536.4mm in September. The total rainfall this season is at 2879.5mm as against the annual average of 2258mm rain.
Under the weather department’s classification, 15.6mm to 64.4mm of rain is considered ‘moderate’, 64.5mm to 115.5mm is ‘heavy’, 115.6mm to 204.4mm is ‘very heavy’ and more than 204.5mm is ‘extreme’.
The weather department said that heavy to very heavy rainfall warnings continued for Mumbai and various areas of north Konkan despite reduced rainfall activity on Wednesday morning. Various parts of the city were waterlogged, flights delayed and traffic snarls were witnessed on Wednesday morning.
“The current satellite images tell us that the thick cloud patch over Mumbai has died down and moved over parts of south Gujarat. Heavy to very heavy rainfall levels are likely to reduce to light to moderate through Wednesday. However, as of now our warnings continue,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general western region, India Meteorological Department (IMD).
He added that three weather factors that led to the heavy cloud formation still persists. “A low pressure area over Bay of Bengal, cyclonic circulation over central Maharastra and a trough (weather depression) that extends from Konkan coast to Kerala, led to the dark cloud formation over Arabian Sea that moved over onto Mumbai and parts of Konkan. While these factors are still strong, the system is shifting northwards” he said. “This is one of the highest rainfall levels seen during September in the city’s history.”
On Tuesday, the suburbs recorded 101.6mm rain just over a span of three hours between 5.30pm and 8.30pm. This led to a number of flights being delayed at the Mumbai airport due to poor visibility that forced the runway to be shut.
Overnight rain from 11.30pm Tuesday to 5.30am Wednesday was 50mm in the suburbs and 21.4mm in south Mumbai.
Between 8.30pm and 11.30pm, the suburbs recorded close to 90mm rain. South Mumbai, however, recorded its highest rainfall this year so far between Tuesday and Wednesday.
The city recorded a drop night temperatures owing to the continuous downpour. While Colaba recorded 23.5 degrees Celsius, Santacruz recorded 23.8 degrees Celsius, both almost 2 degree Celsius below normal.
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