Heavy rain hit Mumbai on Saturday morning and the Regional Meteorological Centre issued a “red alert” for extremely heavy showers in the city on Sunday.
Maharashtra’s Thane, Ratnagiri and Raigad districts are also likely to witness extremely heavy rain on Sunday, the weather department said.
After the weather department’s warning, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation directed civic control rooms and power companies to stay on high alert, PTI reported. The National Disaster Response Force and Indian Navy were asked to be standby.
As Mumbai continued to receive rain on Saturday, the Central Railway suspended local train services between Dadar and Kurla due to waterlogging on railway tracks, ANI reported.
Meanwhile, the southwest monsoon is likely to arrive in Delhi and parts of north-west India by June 15 because of a low-pressure area forming over the Bay of Bengal, the Hindustan Times reported, citing the weather department.
“When a low-pressure area is formed at the onset of monsoon, it creates conditions that conducive for the advancement of monsoon,” Kuldeep Srivastava, the chief of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre in Delhi, told the newspaper.
The India Meteorological Department had said on Friday that this low-pressure area would move northwestwards across Odisha, Jharkhand and north Chhattisgarh in the next three to four days.
“An east-west trough at lower tropospheric levels runs from south Punjab to center of low pressure area over Northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal coasts,” it added. “The east-west trough is very likely to persist during next four to five days.”
The weather department added that strong south-westerly winds were prevailing along the west coast of India. “Under above favourable meteorological conditions, southwest monsoon is likely to advance over entire country outside south Rajasthan and Kutch region of Gujarat during next five to six days,” it said.
The India Meteorological Department predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Sikkim, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana during next five to six days. Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are also likely to receive rainfall over the next four to five days.
“Widespread rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy falls likely to continue over coastal and adjoining Ghats districts of Maharashtra and coastal Karnataka during 11 to 15 June,” the weather department added. “Isolated heavy rainfall is very likely over Kerala during 11 to 15 June, 2021. Isolated extremely heavy falls also very likely over Konkan and Goa.”
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