Mumbai rains: City to see respite as rainfall alert downgraded

After a weekend of torrential downpours, IMD has downgraded its rain alert to yellow, but warnings of high tides, water logging persist

After a long orange weekend for Mumbai, the IMD has reduced the alert intensity for rain from orange alert to a yellow alert for Mumbai and adjoining MMR region.  The weekend witnessed three digit downpour of rain with some parts of the city witnessing heavy spells on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, private weather observers have flagged coming Friday and Saturday for potential water logging as the tide levels are expected to be above four metres.

Many parts of the city and adjoining MMR region including, Dahanu, Vasai-Virar and Thane witnessed water logging in the past week. The annual rainfall also crossed the 1000mm mark this weekend.

IMD officials said, "The Colaba weather station recorded 22.4mm rainfall in the past 24 hours (till 8.30 am on July 17). Similarly, the Santacruz weather station recorded 49.1mm of rainfall in the same period.” An orange alert will continue for Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Satara districts and thunderstorm warnings have been issued for multiple districts including Akola, Amravati, Bhandara, Buldhana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondiya, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim and Yamatval.

Private weather observers have flagged the high tide levels for July 19 and 20 which are to see a high tide of 4.02m and 4.23m respectively. They have also expressed possibilities of water logging in various locations across the city if the weather changes abruptly or it rains heavy during the high tide time as the water will start accumulating and there will be no way to flush out the rain water.

Catchment area

Despite two heavy showers on Monday, the catchment area is still dry. BMC officials feel the situation is still not good. On Tuesday morning water stock reached 36.86 percent.

According to the BMC data, water stock reached 5.33 lakh on Tuesday. Additional Municipal Commissioner, Abhijeet Bangar, said, “We are hoping for good showers. But the situation is still not good as current water stock is useful only till mid-October.”

Only Tulsi Lake which is in the city limits received above 50 mm of rain. However officials have said, this lake just provides half of the water supply of the total capacity of the other six lakes.

4.02M
Tide level expected on July 19

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