By Administrator_India
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an orange alert for Mumbai and neighbouring Thane, indicating heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places. The met department has sounded a red alert for Pune, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Kolhapur, and Satara districts for July 14.
The IMD said that a red alert indicates that extremely heavy rainfall is likely at isolated places in ghat areas. Extremely heavy rainfall means more than 204.4 mm precipitation in 24 hours, it said.
The intensity of rains is expected to reduce from July 15 onwards, the IMD said.
The rest of Maharashtra is expected to receive heavy rains at isolated places and also light to moderate showers, it said.
The IMD on July 13 said that Southwest Monsoon has covered the entire country after a delay of five days. On July 13, several parts of the NCR received rainfall following which the IMD declared the monsoon’s arrival in Delhi.
“In association with the continued prevalence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal in the lower levels since past four days, enhanced cloud cover and scattered to fairly widespread rainfall, the Southwest Monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of the country including Delhi, remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan,” the IMD said.
The IMD had predicted on June 13 that the monsoon would cover Delhi and nearby parts by June 15. On July 5, it said that the monsoon would reach Delhi by July 10. However, its forecast this time went haywire.
The IMD has attributed the faulty forecast to the failure of numerical models.
Meanwhile, parts of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan were lashed by rains on July 13.
In Himachal Pradesh, rescue operations are underway in Kangra district’s Boh valley following a landslide in which one person died and nine others are still feared trapped beneath the debris.
In Kerala, rains continued to batter many parts of the state under the influence of the Southwest monsoon with the weatherman issuing an Orange alert for the hilly Idukki district and a Yellow alert for 11 other districts.
Temperatures hovered below normal limits in Haryana and Punjab after heavy rains lashed parts of the region. Uttar Pradesh received light to moderate rains along with thundershowers at isolated places, the Met Department said.