The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red alert for parts of India due to heavy monsoon rainfall. The monsoon trough is positioned south of its normal position, leading to extremely heavy rainfall in Konkan & Goa, ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra, Coastal Karnataka, South Interior Karnataka, and Kerala & Mahe over the next four to five days. This comes after several regions of India experienced heavy to very heavy rainfall on Saturday, including Konkan & Goa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, East Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim, Odisha, South Interior Karnataka, and Kerala & Mahe. Madhya Maharashtra, Coastal Karnataka, Uttarakhand, East Rajasthan, East Uttar Pradesh, West Madhya Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, and Coastal Andhra Pradesh & Yanam also recorded heavy rain. Mumbai’s Colaba and Santacruz recorded 92 mm and 141.9 mm of rain in the past 24 hours as of 8:30 am on Sunday. Goa’s Pernem, Panaji, and Quepem saw 210 mm, 97 mm, and 165 mm of rain, respectively. In Karnataka, rainfall recorded during the same period in Castle Rock, Agumbe Emo, and Londa was 220 mm, 170 mm, and 60 mm, respectively. The south peninsula has received 10% more than normal precipitation since the beginning of the four-month monsoon season (June-September), but central India remains 7% below normal. The southwest monsoon hit the Kerala coast and northeast India earlier than scheduled but lost momentum. It reached northwest India on time by 29 June, before unleashing Delhi’s highest single-day June rainfall in 88 years. Mumbai was no different. The IMD on 1 July said India could experience above-normal rainfall in July, with heavy rains potentially leading to floods in the western Himalayan states and river basins in the central parts of the country. This is partly because the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has returned to neutral, and the cooler phase, known as La Niña, is expected to be formed in the second half (August-September) of the monsoon season. La Niña is characterized by the cooling of sea surface temperatures in the same regions. It occurs every 3-5 years, and can occasionally happen in consecutive years, leading to increased rainfall and distinct weather patterns, resulting in floods. In the case of Delhi, the IMD said widespread light to moderate rainfall accompanied by thunderstorm and lightning is likely over Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Rajasthan. Isolated to scattered rainfall is likely over Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Muzaffarabad, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and East Rajasthan in the next five days. It further said that heavy rainfall may occur in Uttarakhand, East Rajasthan during 14-18 July, East Uttar Pradesh on 14, 15, and 18.
