MUMBAI: An intense overnight spell of rain lashed parts of Mumbai suburbs between Saturday night and Sunday morning, with the Santacruz IMD observatory recording 87 mm of rainfall in the 24-hour period ending at 8.30 am on September 14. Of this, 61 mm fell in just three hours between 11.30 pm and 2.30 am (September 13-14). However, the rain activity wasn’t even across the city at all, as even though the IMD Santacruz observatory recorded 87 mm of rain in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Sunday, parts like Colaba and Byculla recorded 19.4 mm and 15.5 mm, respectively.The intense but isolated rain spell came even as the city over the past few days was reeling under a dry spell. While a yellow alert indicating thunderstorms accompanied by lightning, heavy rain, and gusty winds at isolated places has been issued for Monday, September 15, the IMD has forecast only moderate showers between September 16 and 18 with no alert in place.Weather enthusiast Abhijit Modak said that this was expected. “It was moisture incursion from the easterly winds which triggered widespread thunderstorms,” he said. The total rainfall recorded this season by the IMD Colaba and Santacruz observatories was 1719.6 mm and 2713.1 mm.Meanwhile, the total water stocks in the seven lakes supplying to Mumbai stood at 14.28 lakh million litres or 98.70% on September 14. Last year on the same day, the total water stocks were also at the same quantum, 14.26 lakh million litres. By October 1, the lakes need 14.47 lakh million litres of water in them to reach full quantum.
