Mumbai sizzles with rise of 3 degrees in a day

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sushma Nair, scientist from IMD Mumbai said the city will experience an escalation in warmth with the temperatures hovering around yesterday’s temperature of 36 degrees, for the next 2-3 days at least. “On Monday, Mumbai’s Santacruz weather station recorded 35.6 degrees. There are dry easterly and north easterly winds in the lower levels owing to which there has been a sudden rise in the temperatures. The city will experience such high temperatures for the next 2 – 3 days at least.”

Raghu Murtugudde, Professor of climate studies at IIT Bombay, told Express that the movement of the easterly winds implies that the monsoon winds have completely retreated and winds from the north-northeast are picking up.
“As they come down the Western ghats, they can become warmer and create warm temperatures. Furthermore, it is warming over the Middle East and the Mediterranean and desert winds are blowing towards Mumbai. This can be another potential reason for the heatwaves,” said Murtugudde on Monday.

Even as the city is sweltering under high temperatures, weather experts and meteorologists have maintained that the ‘October heat’ has not yet set in. A common weather phenomenon for Mumbai, ‘October Heat’ leads to escalation in temperatures from the first week of October each year with the daily temperature rising and ranging between mid-30 – 35 degrees Celsius.

Responding to questions, Murtugudde maintained that the city has not experienced October heat so far.
Explaining the October heat phenomenon, he added, “Once the summer monsoon ends and monsoon retreats, the cooling effect of the northeast winds does not commence immediately. October is the month of transition or the inter-monsoon month. The oceans around are still warm and the weak winds set up high pressure over much of India and create conditions for heatwaves.”

Meanwhile, referring to October heat as the ‘second summer’, Mahesh Palawat from Skymet Weather Services said, “When south-west monsoon withdraws, humid winds are reduced. Furthermore, the positioning of rays is not slant. Owing to these factors, Mumbai and its neighbouring areas experience increased temperatures during the transition phase between monsoon and winter season, until the northerly winds set in and reduce the temperatures.”

In the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon and the city recording 0 mm rain since last week, Mumbaikars have been grappling with high temperatures for the past few days. Data furnished by the IMD showed that until Monday evening, while the Santacruz observatory recorded maximum temperatures of 35.9, the Colaba coastal observatory recorded 33 degrees Celsius.