Mumbai misses out as clouds deposit heavy rains off the coast – Hindustan Times

Despite the weather department’s forecast of Mumbai witnessing “moderate to intense spells of rain” on Sunday night, the city woke up to a drier morning on Monday compared to Sunday, with only 2.8mm rainfall recorded in the 24 hours ending 8:30am.

On Sunday, the city had recorded 45.6mm of rain in the 24 hour period with three isolated heavy spells (between 40 to 70m) seen along the Western railway line, IMD data shows.

Though doppler radar images from as late as 1:30am showed presence of rain clouds around the city, particularly off the coast, the prevalent wind patterns did not allow for moisture incursion inland, officials and independent meteorologists clarified.

The development of a wind shear, with opposing easterly and westerlies, caused Mumbai to miss out on rain over the weekend. As the wind shear moved northward, the formation of an anticyclonic vortex of the coast of Mumbai began causing rain bands to move away from Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and toward the sea.

“Half of the active phase of the monsoon is already wasted for MMR. Current model guidance suggests that by 2-4 pm today (Monday), the vortex will be north enough to allow westerlies to resume over Mumbai and suburbs. However, the monsoon trough is not that strong anymore, so only usual heavy rains in Mumbai,” tweeted independent meteorologist Athreya Shetty.

This view was echoed by a spokesperson with the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional forecasting centre in Mumbai, who said, “There will be more rains now in the second half of this week. We had anticipated as much as 200mm of rainfall in about 24 hours between Sunday and Tuesday, but that seems unlikely now. The latest images from our doppler radar in Mumbai at 8.45am show that clouds are still lying off the coast, with some over Raigad district, which received some heavy showers last night.”

The city has so far seen 1,109mm of rain since June 1, which is about 37% in excess of the seasonal normal of 801mm. However, since at least July 1, the city has recorded largely deficient rains at a departure of more than -80% of the normal rainfall for the same period.