Several parts of Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Palghar witnessed heavy rain on Monday morning. However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted that the monsoon would take a few more days to arrive in Mumbai and the adjoining areas.
The IMD had already predicted a partly cloudy sky with the possibility of light to intense spells of rain in Mumbai and adjoining areas.
On Sunday, the IMD revised its earlier forecast of monsoon onset from May 31 to June 3. The weakening of lower-level southwesterly winds over the past three days has forced the national forecaster to revise its monsoon onset date. The IMD expects a gradual strengthening of southwesterly winds from June 1 onwards, resulting in likely rainfall enhancement over Kerala.
Pulled ahead by the recent Cyclonic storm 'Yaas' over the Bay of Bengal, the Southwest Monsoon raced forward from the Andaman Sea to the southwest Bay of Bengal in six days between May 21 and May 27. For three days after that, the northern limit of the monsoon is stuck between the Maldives-Comorin cape area, passing over Sri Lanka and southwest and the east-central Bay of Bengal.
"All the defined parameters/ criteria for the onset of monsoon over Kerala are being continuously monitored. At present, the criteria are not fully satisfied. For example, the rainfall over Kerala has decreased today along with the weakening of westerly winds. Also, the depth of westerly winds did not increase upto 4.5 km against the expectation. The convective cloud development leading to enhancement of rainfall activity over Kerala in such a scenario is not expected at least upto June 1. From June 1 onwards conditions will gradually become favourable with a gradual increase in strength and depth of westerly winds. It may lead to an onset over Kerala around June 3," said Jayanta Sarkar, Head of IMD's Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) Mumbai.
On Monday morning, IMD’s Santacruz observatory (represents Mumbai suburbs) recorded the maximum temperature at 33.9 degrees Celsius and a minimum temperature of 27.2 degrees Celsius, while the Colaba observatory (represents south Mumbai) recorded a maximum temperature of 33.2 degrees Celsius and a minimum temperature of 28 degrees Celsius.
Amidst all this, IMD Pune said that pre-monsoon rains will lash many parts of Maharashtra including Mumbai, Pune and Konkan starting Monday. On the other hand, the winds blowing from west to east have increased and due to this, Konkan, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha are likely to receive rain for the next four days and pre-monsoon rains will start everywhere in the state from June 2.
