17 June,2020 11:57 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
A young girl enjoys the cloudy evening as heavy rains lash several parts of the city on Monday. Picture/Pradeep Dhivar
Although the onset of monsoon has covered all of Maharashtra, it has so far remained soft for Mumbai and its neighbouring areas with scattered downpour in isolated places. After moderate ranifall in several parts of the city on Monday, Mumbai once again experienced a dry spell on Tuesday. Weather agency Skymet had predicted that there are chances of heavy to very heavy rains from June 15 to June 18 in several parts of the city.
On Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted thunderstorm with lightning and gusty winds and heavy rainfall at isolated places in Mumbai and Thane districts till Thursday. The official release also stated that Mumbai and Thane may receive heavy heavy rainfall at isolated places on Thursday besides experiencing light to moderate rainfall on Friday.
In a tweet, IMD forecasted heavy to very heavy falls and isolated extremely heavy falls over Konkan and Goa during next 2 days and isolated heavy to very heavy falls over Madhya Maharashtra during next 2 days. IMD said this is due to the cyclonic circulation that lies over East Uttar Pradesh and extends upto 3.6 km above mean sea level.
IMD's Mumbai centre deputy director general K S Hosalikar said that there has been rainfall activity over central Mumbai and to city side in the last 24 hours. However, he also said that the suburbs received light rains only. Talking about the amount of rainfall received so far, Hosalikar said seasonal rainfall since June 1 indicates good situation. "Monsoon is yet to cover the entire country," he tweeted.
The IMD Mumbai head also predicted intense spells of rainfall at isolated places in Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg during next 4 hours. Hosalikar also shared satellite and radar images showing wide spread activity of rainfall over Maharashtra and Goa coast. The IMD scientist said, "Last 24 hrs Raigad, Rtn, Sindudurg, Goa reported very heavy rainfall."
On the other hand, weather agency Skymet said that light to moderate rain with one or two heavy spells is expected in the interiors of Maharashtra in the next 24 hours. In its daily bulletin, Skymet said that so far the city has recorded a cumulative rainfall of 226mm against the monthly normal of 493mm.
Predicting heavy rainfall, the private weather agency said that the southern half of Mumbai and its surrounding suburbs are likely to have more intense rains than the northern ones. While Heavy rainfall is likely to occur at cities including Pune and Nasik.
Skymet also said that in the last five years, rainfall in excess of 200 mm in 24 hours was recorded thrice in Mumbai in 2019, 2018 and 2015. While June 2014 was the driest with 87.3 mm of rainfall, June 2015 was the wettest recording 1106.7 mm, which is also an all-time record for the city, Skymet said in its tweet.
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