Mumbai: Brace for more rain today and tomorrow

Pedestrians are caught in sudden rainfall, in Borivli, on Tuesday. Pic/Atul Kamble

The weather forecasters have predicted moderate to heavy rainfall on Wednesday, as the IMD has upped the alert for Mumbai to ‘Orange'.

Meteorologists have also predicted that Mumbai will continue to receive heavy rainfall around midweek. The rain will finally start to recede from September 16.

There was a ‘Yellow' warning for the city on Tuesday. The city's base observatory (Santacruz that represents the suburbs) reported 93.4 mm of rainfall in 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Tuesday. The Colaba observatory recorded 59.2 mm of rainfall during the same period.

Autos ply on a waterlogged road, at BKC, on Tuesday. Pic/Shadab Khan

For September 14, the India Meteorological Department had issued a ‘Yellow' notice for Mumbai and Thane, while Palghar and neighbouring Raigad were on ‘Orange' alert. For September 15, the IMD has issued an ‘Orange' alert for all four regions.

This season--from June 1 to September 10--IMD Colaba and Santacruz observatories have recorded a rainfall of 1,862.5 mm and 2,401.2 mm, respectively.

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Moderate rain

"For the next couple of days, the city and its suburbs will witness moderate rainfall, with the possibility of a heavy downpour at isolated places. The maximum temperature that went up to 31-30 degrees Celsius is likely to drop to 28 degrees Celsius in the next 24 to 48 hours," said an IMD official.

"This week will be wet. The rain activity will peak on Thursday. Accumulated rainfall of the week could touch or cross 180 mm," said Rajesh Kapadia of Vagaries of the Weather, a popular weather blog.

"These rains are attributed to the circulation off the Konkan coast and the depression that has moved towards Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and is inching closer to Maharashtra... The line joining these two systems is also running close to Mumbai.

Rainfall is only expected to increase around Thursday when heavy showers may be seen in some parts of the city. Rains will start to recede from September 16 and remain so for the next seven days," said a meteorologist from Skymet weather, a private forecasting agency.

Bhatsa, the largest lake, is almost full

Thanks to the recent downpour, Bhatsa lake is almost at its capacity. There are seven lakes with a combined capacity of 14.47 lakh million litres of water. Bhatsa lake accounts for 50 per cent of the total capacity at 7.17 lakh million litres. It is the fifth lake that's filled up. Middle Vaitarna and Upper Vaitarna dams are over 96 per cent full. As on Tuesday, all seven lakes have 14.37 lakh million litres of water, which is 99.32 per cent of the total capacity. If all the lakes are full on September 30, the city will receive uninterrupted supply until July 2023.