The rains are likely to come late to Mumbai too. They normally arrive a week after the monsoon breaks over Kerala, so expect them a week later here too – by the second week of June. “The onset over Mumbai should happen by the second week of June. However, it all depends upon the situation at that point in time when the monsoon sets over Kerala. It might get further delayed or set in early,” said LS Rathore, director general, India Meteorological Department.
The private weather forecasting agency, Skymet, predicted the monsoon onset over Mumbai for June 12, with a margin of error of two days. “As of now, on the basis of our weather model and numerical conclusions, a delay of two days has been predicted for the monsoon to set in over Mumbai,” said GP Sharma, vice president meteorology, Skymet.
Weathermen from IMD also added that while a delay has been predicted, it won’t affect rainfall. “The early or delayed arrival has nothing to do with the performance of the monsoon and IMD had already issued the long-range-forecast that it would be a good monsoon this year and the prediction still stands,” said KS Hosalikar, deputy director general, western region, IMD.
Moisture levels in the city, meanwhile, were high on Sunday both during the morning and evening. While the suburbs and south Mumbai recorded 72% and 85% respectively during the morning, by the evening levels dropped marginally to 67% in the suburbs and 80% in south Mumbai.
“Westerly winds from the Arabian Sea have been bringing in a lot of moisture across the Mumbai coast since Saturday. We expect this phenomenon to continue for another week,” said VK Rajeev, director, western region, IMD.
Both Colaba and Santacruz recorded the day temperature at 34.5 degrees Celsius, 1 degree above normal at Colaba and 0.8 degree above normal at Santacruz.