Heavy rain on the cards for Mumbai as IMD issues orange alert for city, red alert for neighbouring districts

The pre-monsoon showers also spurred a dip in minimum and day-time temperatures.

On Thursday morning, the Santacruz observatory recorded 22.5°C, which is five degrees below the normal. Maximum temperatures on Wednesday also dipped nearly two degrees below the normal, hovering around 32°C in the island city and suburban division.

Marking an unusual May, data from the IMD shows that the Santacruz and Colaba observatories have already clocked in over 100 mm of rain–logging in a surplus of 700 per cent from the actual long period average rainfall.

Even so, the IMD has said that the region is set to experience heavier rainfall, starting Friday, with an orange alert issued in Mumbai, Thane and Palghar until Friday. In Raigad district as well as in Ratnagiri, meanwhile, extremely heavy rainfall has been forecast amid a ‘red alert’.

According to meteorologists, the low pressure area (LPA) formed under the influence of an upper air cyclonic circulation, which is slated to usher in heavy showers, developed and formed over the east central Arabian Sea at 5.30 am on Thursday. This LPA is expected to move northwards and intensify into a depression over the next 36 hours, in what is set to lead to very heavy rainfall over Konkan, Goa, and Madhya Maharashtra.