August is the 2nd rainiest month for Mumbai, next to July. Average rainfall for the month of August is 560.8mm. The financial capital having crossed over to the 2nd half, it has not received typical Mumbai rains so far in August. The city has not recorded even double digit rainfall so far and the last 2 days remained totally dry. Conditions do not look to be favourable for any quick make over.
Airport observatory at Santacruz has recorded merely 31.7mm rainfall between 01st and 16thAugust. This seems to be the lowest in the 1st fortnight of August. There is no uptick likely in the next one week and may be longer. Year 2015 happens to be the lowest in the last 10 years, with a monthly rainfall of 158.7mm. Earlier, the lowest rainfall on record was in 1972 with monthly figure of 108.6mm. This month seems to be struggling reaching this lowest figure reached about 5 decades back.
Mumbai gets active monsoon conditions on 3 counts. First one being the off shore trough, extending all along the Western Ghats and more so for Konkan and Coastal Karnataka. Also, any strong monsoon system forming over Bay of Bengal accelerates the monsoon westerlies along the West Coast resulting active monsoon conditions for the city. As the system moves inland and come closer over Madhya Pradesh, the rain intensity picks up further. Occasionally, a cyclonic circulation in the medium levels (MTC) over West Madhya Pradesh and South Gujarat trigger vigorous monsoon conditions for Konkan region, including Mumbai. None of these features getting aligned for accentuating monsoon rains for the capital city.
Low pressure area is forming over Bay of Bengal shortly. However, this monsoon system will be weak and may not even travel along its usual path following monsoon trough. Therefore, the rains are going to be far and few for the city during next one week. As the weather system moves inland sometime next week over parts of Chhattisgarh and East Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai and suburbs may have moderate showers between 23rd and 25thAugust. Still, the wet spell may not suffice the capital city to cross 3 digit mark.
