Pune to get a break from rains for 24 hours

The weather department predicts only a few spells of rain in the next 24 hours in the city. A further reduction has been forecast in the 48-hour period.

India meteorological department’s (IMD) director (weather central), PCS Rao, told DNA on Monday that the low pressure area (LPA) in the Arabian Sea, which had resulted in 81 mm rainfall on Saturday, has converted into an upper air cyclonic circulation and merged with the cyclonic circulation over south Rajasthan.

This would result in widespread rainfall over entire Gujarat in the next 48 hours. Rao said isolated areas in the state would even get heavy to very heavy rainfall.

According to Rao, the present weather conditions would result in widespread rainfall over Konkan and Goa, and fairly widespread rainfall over Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha.
He said the entire horizontal belt extending from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa would get fairly widespread rainfall in the next 48 hours.

Meanwhile, floodwaters in Satara and Kolhapur districts claimed three lives on Sunday. The bodies of Ramchandra Gangaram Kolekar, 47, and Gangaram Dhondiram Lambore, 27, who drowned in the overflowing Kapane river in Kandawle village in Patan taluka of Satara district on Sunday evening, were recovered on Monday morning.

The body of Mahadev Vishnu Varatkar, 51, was retrieved from a rivulet in Shengaon village in Radhnagari taluka of Kolhapur on Sunday evening. Although the rains subsided in south Maharashtra, the rivers remain flooded.

Satara district got average 15.70 mm rainfall, while the discharge from Koyna dam was reduced to 33,680 cusecs.

However, due to the discharge from Koyna dam, the Krishna river was flowing at the 44-foot mark in Sangli, where the danger level stands at 45 feet. A thousand-odd families living along the Krishna river banks in Sangli city have been shifted to safer places.

Sangli district got average 2.9 mm rainfall. Kolhapur got 14.75 mm rainfall. The discharge from Radhangari dam was 6,200 cusecs. The Panchganga river in Kolhapur was flowing at the 41-foot mark at Rajaram Kolhapur-type weir, where the danger level stands at 43 feet.

(With inputs from Mohsin Mulla in Kolhapur)