Brace for a little rain & huge tides

The weather will be incessantly wet but the rain will not be exceptionally heavy on the days the tide is highest,said the India Meteorological Department,Mumbai.

The spectre of rain brings worries of flooding but Dr R V Sharma,deputy director general of IMD,said,“With the depression in Orissa clearing up,there are no chances of heavy rain over Mumbai. Seventy to 120 mm rainfall is bound to be there but that will not inundate the city.”

Weather City,a UK-based website that makes predictions for 42,768 cities through computer forecasting systems,says that on Friday,when the tide will rise to 5.05 m,Mumbai will have only about 25-40 mm rainfall in the morning,13-23 mm in the afternoon and 15-25 mm at night. The weather,it predicted,will be “a mix of clouds and sun with rain,at times heavy,with chances of thunderstorm”. Winds will persist,it predicted,adding that Thursday afternoon will see the week’s highest rain at 25 mm to 40mm.

The BBC’s weather office differs somewhat,predicting “heavy rain showers” in the city till Sunday. However,BBC maintains,visibility will remain good and the wind speed will be only around 20 metres per hour.

Meanwhile,the IMD admitted that the Doppler Radar,an instrument to gauge rain,has not yet been set up in the city. It said the equipment is only a monitoring system and “forecasting can be done even without it”.

However,an expert from the IIT Bombay’s Industrial Design Centre said: “The Doppler Radar can predict rainfall about six hours in advance. This is because its satellite can reach the clouds and gauge the details of the raindrop. On the other hand,other rain gauges can only measure rain once it touches the ground.”