After torrential rains in Mumbai left residents stranded amid critical infrastructure on Wednesday evening, data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) shows that the city once again came under the highest one-day rainfall on record since 2020 between Wednesday and Thursday morning.
The IMD, in its latest statement, has predicted heavy to very heavy rain and thundershowers in and around the metropolis on Thursday, issuing an orange alert for Mumbai and Thane.
In view of the showers, the IMD has put Mumbai and Thane under red alerts till 8.30 am on Thursday, prompting the municipal corporations to announce the closure of schools and colleges in both the districts. Meanwhile, as a red alert sounded in Palghar for the rest of Thursday, the district administration announced school holidays in Palghar district.
The city of Mumbai closed almost half of its monthly quota for September in one day on Wednesday, and has exceeded its monthly average (360 mm) by a total of more than 40 percent.
Data provided by the meteorological office showed that in the last 24 hours at 8.30 am on Thursday, its Santacruz station recorded 170.3 mm of rain and the Colaba coastal monitoring station recorded 169.2 mm of rain, making it the wettest day in September of the year so far.
Records show that this is the highest single-day rainfall recorded in the month of September since 2020, when 286.4 mm of rain lashed Mumbai in a 24-hour period on September 24. A spell of 318.2 mm was recorded on September 23.
With 170 mm, the city also saw almost half of the average September average – 360 mm – in one day. Having received about 510 mm of rain in the month of September so far, the city has exceeded its average monthly rainfall by about 41 percent now.
The city of Mumbai and its suburbs, including major routes such as the western and eastern expressways, and the JVLR, were inundated on Wednesday evening. After the city received only 16 mm of rain till 5.30 pm, the rainfall took a turn for the worse with many pockets receiving more than 250 mm of rain in the next six hours.
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the heaviest showers were recorded in the eastern parts which received an average of 171 mm of rain, followed by the island division of the city which recorded 117.18 mm of rain, while the western parts averaged 109 mm of rain between Wednesday and Thursday morning till 8 am.
Incessant showers led to traffic jams and disruption of trains and flights as 14 flights were diverted from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) to other cities till Wednesday night. Due to the water logging, traffic crawled at a snail’s pace on major routes associated with Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) which also diverted buses from at least 20 routes.
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