The IMD Santacruz observatory recorded 177mm of rainfall in August, against the average monthly quota of 566.4mm. The 10-year lowest August rainfall record was 154mm in 2015. The all-time lowest August rainfall was 108.6mm in 1972.
According to weathermen, Mumbai will not receive heavy rain for the next 10 days. “The rainfall recorded over the past few days has been nil and September also does not look very promising,” said an IMD official.
Explaining the reason for the dry weather condition throughout August, Sushma Nair, scientist at IMD Mumbai, said: “Post-August 5, the monsoon trough remained at the foothills of Himalayas. Apart from it, the monsoon flow over Arabian Sea was also weak. There was one low pressure system that had formed, but it was not very conducive to give Mumbai or its adjoining areas any heavy rainfall.” Significant rainfall of 45mm was recorded on August 26 due to moisture coupled with strong westerly winds, said weathermen. But, the rainfall was concentrated in the suburbs; the IMD Colaba observatory recorded only 10.2mm.
After a two-week delay, the onset of the monsoon was declared over Mumbai on June 25. Since then the city has witnessed consistent rain activity and even surpassed the average June requirement of 537mm by recording 549.1mm of rain. In July, the city witnessed bumper rainfall of 1,769.8mm against the average monthly quota of 855.7mm. In fact, by July 31, Mumbai received the season’s required average rainfall of 2,318.8mm.
Meanwhile, the total water stocks in the seven catchment area lakes stood at 90.4% or nearly 13.1 lakh million litres of the total required quantum of 14 lakh million litres. The BMC has revoked the 10% water cut it had imposed on July 1.
