Heavy rain to persist across India as IMD warns of flash floods in Gujarat, Maharashtra
The weather office expects widespread downpours to spread across northern and northeastern states over the coming days following record rainfall in the west.
ACTIVE monsoon conditions are set to persist across northwest, central and adjoining north peninsular India, as well as eastern and northeastern states over the next three to four days, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warning of isolated spells of extremely heavy rainfall and a risk of floods in parts of western India.
The weather office said the Gujarat region, south-east Rajasthan and Madhya Maharashtra are likely to receive isolated extremely heavy rainfall on 24 July. In contrast, Peninsular India is likely to continue seeing subdued rainfall activity over the next seven days.
The IMD forecast fairly widespread to widespread rainfall over Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Uttarakhand over 24-29 July. Rainfall is also expected to intensify over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and east Uttar Pradesh from 27-29 July, while Rajasthan is likely to receive widespread showers from 24-26 July.
In central India, widespread rainfall is forecast over Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Vidarbha, while Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands are expected to receive widespread rainfall over the coming week. Most northeastern states, including Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, are also likely to witness widespread rainfall during this period.
Flash floods warning
The IMD warned of a moderate to high risk of over the next 24 hours in parts of Gujarat, Konkan & Goa, Madhya Maharashtra and western Madhya Pradesh. The alert covers:
Alirajpur, Barwani, Dhar and Jhabua in West Madhya Pradesh;
over a dozen districts across Gujarat, including Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Bharuch and Valsad;
Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Palghar, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg in Konkan & Goa; and
Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Nandurbar, Nashik, Pune and Satara in Madhya Maharashtra.
The weather office said heavy rainfall could trigger surface runoff and waterlogging in low-lying areas, particularly in locations where the soil is already saturated.
The warning follows intense rainfall over the past 24 hours. Exceptionally heavy rainfall (30 cm or more) was recorded at isolated places in south Gujarat and Madhya Maharashtra, while Konkan witnessed extremely heavy rainfall (21 cm or more).
Very heavy rainfall was reported in Jammu and Kashmir, east Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and heavy rainfall was recorded in parts of West Bengal and Sikkim, Punjab, Nagaland, Vidarbha, and coastal and north interior Karnataka.
