Mumbai was drenched with very heavy rainfall, yesterday. Santacruz and Colaba recorded 170mm and 169mm of rainfall in the past 24 hours, ending at 8.30 a.m. today morning. Actually, it poured heavily till midnight and relaxed a bit, thereafter. The high tide in the evening around 6.30 p.m. further compounded the situation. The city life nearly came to a halt with traffic snarls, localized flooding, and inundation of low-lying areas. The road and rail traffic literally got cramped. Air connectivity was no better, with many flights getting diverted, cancelled, rerouted, go around due to inclement weather conditions. The weather conditions did improve after midnight till this morning. However, these are expected to clamp down again as the day progresses, maybe with bigger ferocity, than yesterday.
Multiple meteorological factors have joined together to cause this mayhem. The cyclonic circulation over North Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Southwest Madhya Pradesh, the east-west shear line, and the convergence zone over the Konkan region are working in tandem to trigger hazardous weather conditions. All is not yet over and possibly the worst is still ahead. Very heavy downpours are likely over Mumbai and suburbs, in the evening and night hours. The intense weather activity is expected tomorrow, as well.
The heavy weather activity, once again, is going to coincide with the high tide timings of around 7.45 p.m. During the tide, accumulated water gets restricted exit and rather backflow starts raising the stagnant water level in the coastal areas. Once again, rail, road and air traffic will be impacted due to inclement weather conditions. Utmost caution need to be observed. Major improvement in the weather conditions is expected on the approaching weekend. However, today and tomorrow may retrace the track of three digit rainfall in 24 hours.
Image Courtesy: Free Press Journal
