Heavy Rains in Mumbai Send Traffic Haywire, Showers to Continue Today as Well

The IMD predicted that Mumbai will receive a good amount of rainfall on Saturday as well.

Mumbai: Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its surrounding areas on Friday. However, there were no reports of severe waterlogging because the rainfall was intermittent.

Notably, 17 inbound flights were diverted from the Mumbai airport on Friday as the city witnessed heavy downpour, stated the airport authorities. Besides, four flights had to do ‘go-around’ before they could land, a spokesperson of the Mumbai airport said later in the evening.

Recently, heavy rainfall in Mumbai had inundated several areas across the city, including Sion, Matunga, Mahim, Andheri, Malad and Dahisar. This resulted in huge traffic snarls at major junctions in the capital city of Maharashtra.

(Check all the updates on Mumbai rains here)

On Friday evening, a catchment area lake named Modak Sagar, which supplies water to Mumbai began to overflow. A report stated that Modak Sagar lake supplies 440 million litres of water to the city on a daily basis. This is equivalent to 11 per cent of the total water quantum that the city requires daily. The full capacity of this catchment area is 163.15 metres. The total water stock in Modak Sagar increased by 6.28 per cent within the day, stated a report. This incident comes a day after Tansa lake was reported to be overflowing.

According to IMD Colaba and Santa Cruz observatory, the rainfall recorded as on Friday was 24.2 mm and 23 mm respectively. Besides, Mumbai is likely to receive a good amount of rainfall on Saturday as well, predicted the Met Department. Intense spells of rain are likely to continue in the districts of Thane, Raigad and Mumbai, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had said earlier in the day.

Mahesh Palawat, vice-president of meteorology and climate change department in SkyMet Weather, stated, “We are expecting such rain activity to continue till June 27 and the intensity will decrease from July 28. From June 29, we expect a significant decrease in rain activity. Although occasional light to moderate showers will continue, heavy rains or extremely heavy rains are ruled out.”