IMD issues red alert for Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat amid heavy rain; monsoon to retract by Oct 5

In its recent forecast, the IMD issued a red alert in regions across Maharashtra, Konkan Goa and Gujarat, saying that monsoon is likely to retract by October 5.In its latest forecast, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that heavy to extremely rainfall will continue throughout the day in the western coastal states of the country,

issuing a red alert for areas in Maharashtra, Konkan Goa and Gujarat for Thursday.Senior IMD scientist Naresh Kumar said that since the cyclonic circulation has moved westward, heavy rains will continue today across these three states.“There will be extremely heavy rainfall in Maharashtra, and Gujarat today as well as the cyclonic circulation has moved westward. We have given a red alert for Konkan Goa, Gujarat region, and Maharashtra,” the IMD scientist told PTI.

Further, the MeT department said that the monsoon in Maharashtra is likely to withdraw by October 5.

Several places in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai and Pune, were left waterlogged after torrential rains on Wednesday night. The heavy rain is expected to continue on Thursday. The city is likely to witness light to moderate rainfall over the weekend, said the weather agency.Sunil Kamble,

a scientist at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Mumbai, told ANI, “In the next 5-6 days, monsoon will reduce and there are chances that monsoon will withdraw by October 5 but sometimes the chances increase, so the withdrawal date extends to October 10.”"

Till yesterday afternoon, an orange alert was issued for Mumbai. But with the monsoon intensifying, we issued a red alert till 8.30 am this morning. As soon as we issued a red alert we saw that more than 200 mm of rain was registered in the regions of Mumbai.

Today, we have issued an orange alert for Mumbai. From today, an orange alert has been issued for a lot of districts and from tomorrow green and yellow alerts will be issued," Kamble said.Parts of Maharashtra witnessed over 200 mm of rainfall on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, leading to waterlogging and blocked streets across Mumbai, Pune, and Thane. Public transport services were hit and flights were delayed due to the incessant rainfall. Train and bus services were restored on Thursday morning as the water has receded in many parts.