Mumbai records highest 24-hour September rain in 10 yrs

Incessant rain since yesterday afternoon, Mumbai recorded its highest 24-hour September rainfall for the decade, and second highest all-time high September day rain for the city. Due to torrential rain in Mumbai since yesterday, flooding low-lying areas and paralysing rail, road and air traffic in the country's financial hub. Schools and colleges have been shut today. The Met Office, which has predicted more rain in the next 24 hours, said the "worst is over".

'We have removed warning (for heavy rainfall), intermittent rainfall is likely over city and suburbs for the next 48 hours,' a senior weather official said. Santacruz weather station, representative of the suburbs and Mumbai, recorded 303.7 mm, and Colaba, representative of south Mumbai, recorded 210 mm rain, which is the highest for south Mumbai this monsoon season. The city was just 14.5 mm short of recording the all-time high 24 hour September rainfall at 318.2 mm recorded on September 12, 1981. Mumbai’s average rainfall for September is 312.3 mm, which was surpassed over the past 24 hours. Currently, the city has recorded 536.4 mm in September. The total rainfall this season is at 2879.5 mm as against the annual average of 2258 mm rain.

Under the weather department’s classification, 15.6 mm to 64.4 mm of rain is considered ‘moderate’, 64.5 mm to 115.5 mm is ‘heavy’, 115.6 mm to 204.4 mm is ‘very heavy’ and more than 204.5 mm is ‘extreme’. 'The current satellite images tell us that the thick cloud patch over Mumbai has died down and moved over parts of south Gujarat. Heavy to very heavy rainfall levels are likely to reduce to light to moderate through Wednesday. However, as of now our warnings continue,' said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general western region, India Meteorological Department (IMD). He added that three weather factors that led to the heavy cloud formation still persists. 'A low pressure area over Bay of Bengal, cyclonic circulation over central Maharashtra and a trough (weather depression) that extends from Konkan coast to Kerala, led to the dark cloud formation over Arabian Sea that moved over onto Mumbai and parts of Konkan. While these factors are still strong, the system is shifting northwards,' he said. 'This is one of the highest rainfall levels seen during September in the city’s history.' The city recorded a drop night temperatures owing to the continuous downpour.

While Colaba recorded 23.5 degrees Celsius, Santacruz recorded 23.8 degrees Celsius, both almost 2 notch below normal. Flight operations, however, remained affected at Mumbai airport; a total of 56 flights have been diverted as the main runway is not yet operational. "The main runway has been closed for operations and there are delays in arrival and departure of flights due to fluctuating weather," said a senior official at the Mumbai airport.

In view of Runway Closure and Weather in Mumbai, SpiceJet is offering full refund on no-show requests and waiver in change/cancellation fee for passengers travelling to/from Mumbai dated 20th September 2017. As heavy showers lashed Mumbai on Tuesday, a SpiceJet aircraft overshot the Mumbai airport runway and got stuck in the mud. The plane landed at 2205 hrs at the Mumbai airport and all 183 passengers on a Varanasi-Mumbai SpiceJet flight had a miraculous escape.