Monsoon revives over Maharashtra, yellow alert widens to 30 districts
The weather department has forecast heavy to moderate rain across Maharashtra on September 12 and 13, with an orange alert for some districts.
After a dry August and a slow start to September that left large parts of Maharashtra waiting for rain, the monsoon has turned active again, with the weather department warning of heavy spells through the Ganeshotsav period.
The turnaround was first visible on September 11, when a yellow alert covered eleven districts. Vidarbha carried most of that warning, with Bhandara, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha and Yavatmal placed under alert for winds of 40 to 50 kmph, spells of light to moderate rain, and heavier showers with thunder in isolated pockets. Buldhana, Amravati, Akola and Washim were not under any warning that day, though forecasters flagged a change coming their way. Nanded, Hingoli and Parbhani in Marathwada were also under alert, with rain and squally winds of 30 to 40 kmph expected, while nearby Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Beed, Latur and Dharashiv were told to expect showers without a formal warning. In the north, only the hill tracts around Nashik carried an alert, with the district itself, along with Jalgaon, Nandurbar and Dhule, expecting lighter, thundery rain. Konkan saw scattered showers but no warning, and the west, including the Kolhapur, Sangli and Solapur hill belt, stayed largely dry and warm.
By September 12, that limited alert had grown into a statewide warning covering thirty districts, running from the Mumbai metropolitan region and the northern coast through central Maharashtra into the Marathwada and Vidarbha belts, as moderate rain and strong winds were forecast to sweep across most of the state, with lighter showers over the southern half of central Maharashtra and the Goa-adjoining coast.
The system strengthened further on September 13, when forecasters raised an orange alert, a step above yellow, for the Dhule-Nandurbar belt and the Nashik hills, warning of moderate to heavy rain with strong winds there and across the coastal and central-north stretch and Marathwada, while a yellow warning continued for the Mumbai region, the Konkan coast further south, the Pune and Satara hill tracts and plains, and parts of Marathwada and Vidarbha. Authorities cautioned that the wind and rain combination could damage standing crops and flood low-lying pockets, and advised residents along riverbanks to stay alert and follow official instructions.
The department expects the intensity to drop from September 14, by when the yellow alert is likely to be confined mainly to the Nashik and Pune hill areas, Pune and Ahilyanagar districts, and Ratnagiri on the coast. The disaster management authorities have repeated their standard advisory for the period, telling people to avoid sheltering under trees during lightning and to move to safe structures instead, and urging farmers to be careful while working in the fields.
Vidarbha, where the yellow alert had been most persistent through the week, was expected to stay wet through September 12, and the 10-day outlook accompanying the earlier bulletin had put the maximum temperature there at around 29 to 33 degrees Celsius and the minimum between 26 and 27 degrees over the following ten days, figures that predate the wider system now moving across the state. For farmers who had watched the kharif season fall behind on rainfall, the renewed spell, however disruptive in the short term, is being read as the relief the season needed.
