Moderate rain in city this week, yellow alert in Thane, Raigad

Sushma Nair from IMD Mumbai told The Indian Express, “In the coming days, the city can expect some rainfall activity. While the intensity won’t be high, the city may get some relief from the dry spell experienced in August.”

Meteorologists and weather experts have attributed the rise to a combination of two weather systems. Speaking to The Indian Express, Mahesh Palawat, from Skymet Weather Services, said, “A low pressure system is developing over the north west Bay of Bengal that will travel to Madhya Pradesh and adjoining Vidharba. A cyclonic circulation is in place over interior north Karnataka. A combination of this will bring heavy rain in parts of Vidharbha, Marathwada and Madhya Maharashtra.”

“Owing to these, westerly winds would get stronger, bringing increased rain activity in Mumbai and other coastal areas. While the intensity will not be as strong as the other regions of the state, Mumbai and neighbouring districts will experience increased rain activity on and off during the week,” added Palawat.

Even as the IMD has forecast moderate showers in the coming days, in the past 24 hours ending Monday morning, IMD’s Santacruz weather station recorded 0.2 mm of rain, while Colaba observatory received 6 mm rain.

After recording the wettest July, Mumbai this year recorded the driest August since 2015. Monthly rainfall figures furnished by the IMD showed that 176.8 mm rain was recorded in August, which is only around 31 per cent of the monthly average rainfall quota of 566.4 mm.

According to civic officials, a good bout of monsoon showers in September is crucial for the lake levels to touch its full capacity, failing which the city could reel under a water cut throughout the year, until the onset of next monsoon. Senior civic official Purshottam Malvade said a review meeting will be convened on October 1 to survey the lake levels.

“If the lake level is less than 100 per cent of the capacity, the BMC plans a strategy to ensure that the water lasts till next year. The extent of the cut depends on the percentage of water stock in the seven lakes by September end,” said Malavade.

Owing to weak showers in August, the water stock in the seven lakes that supply water to Mumbai was at 90.69 per cent Monday morning. Last year, on the same day, the lake level was 97.92 per cent of the total capacity.