Come Monsoon and heavy to very heavy showers are a common sight for the city. Three-digit rainfall often makes its appearance during the four-month long season, particularly July which is the rainiest month for Mumbai.
On one side it brings immense relief from hot and humid weather but on the other end, it has great potential to bring city to the halt, taking economic toll.
How vulnerable is Mumbai for the intense rains?
As per the statistics available for last 10 years, five years has seen more 200 mm of rains during the 24 hours, while three years have seen more than 100 mm and two years have clocked less than 100 mm.
The present Monsoon season indicates to be following the second track. However, Mumbai Monsoon is very unpredictable. According to weathermen, it is quite difficult to predict as torrential rains can make an appearance over the city without giving much indications.
For instance, Monsoon 2005 had wreaked havoc over the financial capital in mere 24 hours. On July 26, 2005, Mumbai had recorded 940 mm of rain in span of 24 hours. Out of this, more than 70% of rainfall was received between 2:30 pm and 8:30 mm.
What had worsened the situation was the timings of the downpour that had collided with the high tide which did not let the water to escape in the sea.
None of the weather models predicted this event and few of them even failed miserably including the Indian model. Even the renowned weather model, ECMWF had predicted just 40 mm of rain. Closest was the UK Office model that had given forecast of around 280 mm to 320 mm of rain.
The latest example is 110 mm of rainfall recorded in span of 24 hours from 8:30 am on July 28, 2016. The city had been witnessing light to moderate rain since last few days and were expected to continue with similar intensity only. However, last 24 hours saw some extremely heavy showers.
Mumbai is not only vulnerable to heavy Monsoon rains but variability is also very high irrespective of any weather phenomenon affecting the Monsoon. July 2014 was an evolving El-Nino year but recorded 1468 mm of rain, while July 2015 that was El-Nino saw just 359 mm. 2009 was also a strong El-Nino year but Mumbai recorded 1142 mm in July.
Mumbai Monsoon: A complex phenomenon
Southwest Monsoon as a whole is a complex phenomenon, let alone the Mumbai Monsoon.
The Monsoon circulation has to be simulated by the weather models very-very accurately and thereafter, incorporated well to forecast such high-impact events. Weather models capture wide range of cloud field but fail to pick up the localized meso-scale severe storms that can cause vigorous weather activity.
July 2016, like June, had made a poor start but picked up in the latter half of the month. Till July 26, Mumbai had recorded 599.8 mm of rain against the monthly normal of 799.8 mm. But as mentioned above, rains picked pace on thereafter, particularly on July 28 that saw exceptionally heavy rains, which helped Mumbai to surpass the its monthly normal in a day’s span only.
The daunting target which once looked unachievable was covered well before the month could end. Further, we expect moderate rains to continue over the city with some heavy spells in between.
Thus, as the city, Mumbai rains also never lose hopes!
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Any information taken from here should be attributed to skymetweather.com