Heavy showers battered Mumbai for the second consecutive day Monday, with the Colaba coastal observatory recording over 100 mm of rainfall between Sunday and Monday morning, triggering waterlogging and traffic snarls.
At 8.30 am, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red nowcast warning for Mumbai for the next three hours. IMD has said that intense to very intense spells of rain and thunderstorms accompanied by lightning with gusty winds are likely to lash Mumbai, Thane, and Raigad over the next three hours.
Before that, IMD upgraded the yellow alert to an orange alert in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, and Raigad districts. The orange alert will remain in place until Tuesday morning, after which no further alerts have been issued.
For the second consecutive day, the city woke up to heavy rain, with data from IMD showing that in the past 24 hours till 8.30 am Monday, the Colaba coastal observatory registered 134.4 mm of rainfall while the Santacruz station received 73.2 mm. Besides this, 82 mm of rainfall was recorded in Bandra, followed by 73 mm in Byculla, 70.5 mm in Tata Power, and 45 mm in Juhu between 8.30 am and 5.30 am Monday.
Records from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) show that the heaviest rain was recorded in the island city division with an average of over 100 mm of rainfall.
According to the civic body’s automatic weather stations, the city division received 111.19 mm of rainfall between Sunday and Monday morning, followed by 76.46 mm in the eastern suburbs, and 74.15 mm of rainfall in the western suburbs.
The incessant showers overnight led to waterlogging across several pockets in the city Monday morning, affecting vehicular movement during peak travel hours for office goers. According to the Mumbai traffic police, the Andheri subway was shut for vehicular movement owing to inundation, with the traffic diverted through Gokhale Bridge.
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“Traffic is moving at a slow pace as half a foot of water is accumulated at Khar Subway (Vakola) and one foot of water is accumulated at Panbai School North Bound Slip Road,” the Mumbai traffic police said in another update.
The showers on Monday morning followed a downpour between Saturday and Sunday, during which the Santacruz station received 87 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, while the Colaba station recorded 19.4 mm of rainfall.
The heavy monsoon spells have swept the region over the weekend, even as September is the driest of the four monsoon months in Mumbai, when the city’s suburban belt receives an average of 360 mm of rainfall during the month.
