Weather department sounds 24-hour ‘high rainfall’ alert for city

It turns out that the Friday downpour was just a prelude to a more rainy Saturday, as the weather office has issued an alert for “high to very high rainfall” for the city over the next 24 hours.

The regional meteorological department said Mumbai experienced an average of 100mm of rainfall on Friday, with the Santa Cruz station recording an average of 123mm of rainfall and the Colaba station recording 21mm.

Data from the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC) revealed that the island city received a total of 81mm of rainfall, the eastern suburbs received 92mm, and the western suburbs received 79mm between 8 am and 4 pm on Friday.

This rainfall was accompanied by high tide with 4m waves which led to severe flooding at various spots throughout the city. A high tide of 4.05m was recorded at 1.36 am on Friday, and of 4.47m at 2.05 pm on Friday.

Following this, the BMC issued a warning asking all people to stay away from the sea, even if they want to approach bayside areas to enjoy the monsoon.

Skymet, an organisation which also forecasts weather, has attributed the present downpour to the shifting of the monsoon trough towards the Bay of Bengal. The trough is expected to shift to the centre of the Bay of Bengal, owing to the development of a low pressure area over Odisha.