Colaba rain 5th lowest in 50 yrs

Mumbai: Tuesday's evening showers may have come as a welcome respite to the rain-starved island city but overall in July, Colaba continued to remain dry, recording the fifth lowest rainfall in 50 years. Met department data shows that Colaba recorded 325mm rainfall in July—the least in the past five decades was in 2002 when 

it recorded only 103.5mm. 
    Overall this season, Colaba has got 579.6mm rainfall, a deficit of 55% from the average 1,290mm that it usually receives. "Anything above 26% in deficit is a meteorological drought," said N Y Apte, deputy director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai. But a meteorological drought in Mumbai does not hold, as there is no agriculture here, he said. 
    "Mumbai gets its water supply from the catchment areas, which are all outside the city. The rainfall in these areas is what really affects the city. All the rainfall in Mumbai goes into the sea," Apte said. 
    On Tuesday, between 8.30am and 8.30pm, Colaba received 9.6mm of rainfall. As for the suburbs, it has seen more rains in July, with Santa Cruz recording nearly 620mm rainfall. Overall this season, there was a deficit of 32% with 927.8mm recorded against an average of 1,359mm rainfall. Between 8.30am and 8.30pm on Tuesday, Santa Cruz recorded 4.8mm of rainfall. Met dept says rains likely for next two days 
Mumbai: Though the city has seen scanty rainfall this season, weather bureau officials said there might still be time enough for the monsoon to just about reach its normal mark. On an average, Colaba sees 2,319mm rainfall in the monsoon season that runs from June to September, while Santa Cruz gets 2,670mm. "There have been no significant systems over the Konkan coast. Even the offshore trough, which runs from Konkan to Kerala coasts, has not been strong enough for a long stretch. All these reasons together are responsible for lack of rainfall over the city," NY Apte of IMD said. 
    Tuesday's rains that were accompanied by gusty winds were not because of any particular system. "There has been some strengthening of winds, because of which the city is witnessing these showers. However, it is not likely to last more than a day or two," said V K Rajeev, director of weather forecast at IMD. The met department predicted occasional spells of rain or thundershowers in city and suburbs with heavy rainfall in some areas for the next two days.