Thunder twice hit MT. Everest height dumps over 250 mm rain in Mumbai.

Thunder twice hit MT. Everest height dumps over 250 mm rain in Mumbai. 

The Intensity of rains began to subside between 3:30 and 4 am for most parts of Mumbai as the cloud formation moved on to Palghar district. 

The Saturday thunderstorm in Mumbai deposited 235 mm of rain at the India meteorological department monitoring station in Santacruz. While early Friday’s extreme rainfall totalling 253 mm was confined to the western suburbs on Sunday, more than 204.5 mm rain fell in 24 hours, including 180 mm to 270 mm received Across the city. Weather experts were amazed by the monster thunderstorm, which, as per the weather department’s Doppler radar images, had a cloud top height of nearly 18 km, or 60,000 feet. 

According to the IMD, most locations in Mumbai received well over 150 mm of rain in just a few hours ending at 3:30 am Sunday, leading to severe waterlogging, interruption in water supply and at least 18 deaths. The storm, described by expert meteorologists and forecasters as massive and monstrous, formed initially over Raigad district late Saturday. Then, they slowly moved north along the west coast till it reached south Gujarat. 

To have a thunderstorm track northward like that and maintain strength is unique; no forecast models predicted such extreme rains. It was supposed to be a typical monsoon day around 20-60 mm rains, tweeted independent forecaster. 

 The Intensity of rains began to subside between 3:30 and 4 am for most parts of the city as the cloud formation moved on to Palghar district. 

Sridhar Balasubramaniam, expert tracking weather at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, attributed the intense spell to an offshore vortex, adding that IIT b had recorded over 250 mm of rain in just three hours. 

The incident marked the fifth thunderstorm for Mumbai this month alone, pointed out Akshay doors, independent meteorologist and PhD researcher at the University of reading. 

Deoras pointed out that easterly winds in the mid atmospheric levels bring relatively dry air over the warm and moist air conditions in lower levels, which are carried by westerly winds, making the situation ideal for convective instabilities, which is further facilitated by daytime heat. Additionally, the vertical wind shear is significant, which is prolonging the lifespan of thunderstorm deoras said. 

 A similar observation was made by another independent forecaster Athreya Shetty. 

The absence of upper-level winds further exacerbated the Intensity because of the sheer height of the cloud structure formed over Mumbai. Images from the IMD Doppler radar showed that the thunderstorm had a cloud top size of nearly 18 km or 60,000 feet. To put in other words, the vertical extent of this monster thunderstorm is approximately twice that of Mount Everest. 

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