Will rain play spoilsport at Women’s World Cup final in Navi Mumbai today? Here’s what IMD has to say

According to the IMD, light to moderate rain is likely to sweep Thane as well as Raigad districts. Navi Mumbai, where the Indian women’s team is set to take on South Africa in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup final Sunday, fall under both these districts.

The venue for the final, D Y Patil Stadium, is in Navi Mumbai’s Nerul in the Thane district. While no alerts have been sounded for the day, the IMD in its bulletin forecast generally cloudy sky with moderate rain in the Thane district.

On Sunday, the IMD issued at least two nowcast warnings for the Navi Mumbai region. While the first yellow nowcast warning was issued at 7 am, another yellow nowcast warning,stating possibility of light spells of rain, was sounded at 10 am for Navi Mumbai alongside Mumbai, Thane amongst other districts for a duration of three hours.

The wet start to November in Mumbai is indicative of more light rain for the region, said the IMD, which stated that light rain will continue to sweep Mumbai as well as neighbouring districts like Thane, Palghar, Raigad over the next few days.

The showers come along the heels of the island city division recording its wettest October month in the past three years. Records show that the Colaba observatory received 165 mm of rainfall through October this year, which is the highest in three years, since October 2022, when the station recorded 186 mm of rainfall. Meteorologists attributed the incessant spells of rain to a deep depression as well as a trough running along the upper air cyclonic circulation system associated with the depression.

Besides bringing relief from the scorching heat, the unseasonal showers have also cleared the skies and led to a dip in the Air Quality Index (AQI). After a ‘poor’ reading of 212 during Diwali, the AQI dropped to 56 on Sunday due to the rains that settled suspended pollutants.

As per Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) records, all the stations logged an AQI between 0-100 with at least 11 monitoring stations even logging AQI under 50, which is categorised as ‘good’. At 34, the ‘best’ AQI was recorded in Colaba, followed by Byculla which registered 38 Sunday morning.