Mumbai’s August rainfall deficit stands at 46% – Hindustan Times

With just a day left for the month to end, Mumbai’s rainfall deficit for August stood at 46% on Monday, data from the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) monitoring station at Santacruz has revealed. Till 8.30am on Monday, Mumbai had recorded 288.8mm of rain as against the monthly normal of 531.3mm. Experts and officials attributed the deficit to weakening of monsoon winds, but clarified that there are higher chances of rain for the city and its surrounding areas during the next fortnight.

Light to moderate showers were felt across MMR early on Monday, with IMD’s observatory in Santacruz recording 1mm of rain up to 5:30pm. Most of the monitoring stations across the city, Thane and Navi Mumbai saw between 1 and 5mm of rain during the same period.

“The offshore trough, which is an elongated low-pressure region off the coast of Maharashtra, plays an important role in bringing proper rainfall to Mumbai and the larger MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) area. As the overall monsoon wind pattern across the South Asian region remained weak, the offshore trough could not gain strength during most of August. Even monsoon low-pressure systems forming over the Bay of Bengal or eastern India could not help in strengthening the offshore trough as the overall monsoon wind pattern was weak,” said Akshay Deoras, independent meteorologist and PhD student at University of Reading.

Current forecasts suggest that rainfall prospects for MMR during the first fortnight of September are better than those in August and second fortnight of September, although a continuous wet spell appears unlikely in the first half of September. Under the influence of a monsoon low-pressure system, the region can expect some increase in rainfall with cloud cover on Tuesday, following which subdued or low rainfall conditions are expected to continue during rest of the week.

“There might be an active rain spell around the next mid-week. For Maharashtra in general, the first fortnight of September is expected to be wetter than the second one. The interior parts of the state are expected to be benefitted by two monsoon low-pressure systems over the next two weeks, Deoras added.

IMD on Monday issued yellow category storm warning for Mumbai for the next two consecutive days, indicating a very likely possibility of heavy rain at isolated locations. It issued an orange alert (very heavy rain in some locations) for Thane and Raigad for Tuesday and for Palghar on Wednesday.

“On August 30, a monsoon low-pressure area is over Chhattisgarh and 15 degrees north of it is the east-west shear zone… much awaited rains will come to Rajasthan and Gujarat. For Maharashtra, too, it is good news,” said KS Hosalikar, scientist with IMD’s surface instrument division in Pune.