The monsoon arrived in Mumbai in mid-June as expected. The arrival of the monsoon is a wonderful thing - the relief of cool, heavy rain falling after eight months of nothing is immense and the stifling humidity of May and June finally reduces.
As I write this, we have hardly had any rain for the last week, which is rather unusual for this time of year, but I suspect that the weather is simply having a rest after a spectacular start to the season. Two weeks ago, we had a few days of the most extreme rain I've ever seen....thunderous, relentless and immensely powerful. It's hard to convey exactly what the rain is like as I've never seen anything that compares in the UK. Imagine days which don't really get light as the clouds are so dark and thick, water falling as if from a power shower, and drains that cannot cope to the extent where deep water (sometimes several feet deep) gathers extremely quickly. This intense period of rain included 300mm within a single 24 hour period - that's more than 50% of London's average annual rainfall.
The heaviest spell of rain was on a Friday....Phil had been away the day before on a trip to a fort a 7 hour train ride away and arrived back in Mumbai by train early that morning. Realising that the train wasn't going to reach its destination, Phil got out on the outskirts of the city and travelled home by taxi. I'm very relieved that he did...out of 14 people in my team, 3 of us made it into office as the train network shut down and roads quickly became impassible owing to flooding. I sent those who made it in home as it was clear that conditions were worsening throughout the day, and I worked from home.
Saturday looked a little better, it wasn't raining in the morning and it was our two year anniversary of arriving in India, so we headed out to go swimming at a nearby hotel in the morning followed by a smart lunch. Unfortunately, the pool was shut owing to the heavy rains (early monsoon rain is quite dirty so can contaminate swimming pools) so I had a relaxing head massage instead until it was time for lunch. We spent 90 minutes over our lunch, in which time it started raining....hard. By the time we left, the road had filled up with more than six inches of water - we had to roll up our trousers and wade through to get to the car! Thankfully, we made it home without incident, but I found this unnerving to say to least. I'm impressed that Sagar still makes it into work on his motorbike in these conditions, but I think he sees it as a bit of a challenge rather than a risk!
Here is a video from Wet Friday taken from our apartment balcony. The rain was like this all day:
Typically, the monsoon is not debilitating although it does make travelling more difficult when heavy. An umbrella is an important accessory and there is usually some rain every day, and heavy rain once every few days. July is normally the heaviest month, so we've got three more weeks for the monsoon to show us what it can do (hopefully when I'm home and dry!)
As I write this, we have hardly had any rain for the last week, which is rather unusual for this time of year, but I suspect that the weather is simply having a rest after a spectacular start to the season. Two weeks ago, we had a few days of the most extreme rain I've ever seen....thunderous, relentless and immensely powerful. It's hard to convey exactly what the rain is like as I've never seen anything that compares in the UK. Imagine days which don't really get light as the clouds are so dark and thick, water falling as if from a power shower, and drains that cannot cope to the extent where deep water (sometimes several feet deep) gathers extremely quickly. This intense period of rain included 300mm within a single 24 hour period - that's more than 50% of London's average annual rainfall.
The heaviest spell of rain was on a Friday....Phil had been away the day before on a trip to a fort a 7 hour train ride away and arrived back in Mumbai by train early that morning. Realising that the train wasn't going to reach its destination, Phil got out on the outskirts of the city and travelled home by taxi. I'm very relieved that he did...out of 14 people in my team, 3 of us made it into office as the train network shut down and roads quickly became impassible owing to flooding. I sent those who made it in home as it was clear that conditions were worsening throughout the day, and I worked from home.
Saturday looked a little better, it wasn't raining in the morning and it was our two year anniversary of arriving in India, so we headed out to go swimming at a nearby hotel in the morning followed by a smart lunch. Unfortunately, the pool was shut owing to the heavy rains (early monsoon rain is quite dirty so can contaminate swimming pools) so I had a relaxing head massage instead until it was time for lunch. We spent 90 minutes over our lunch, in which time it started raining....hard. By the time we left, the road had filled up with more than six inches of water - we had to roll up our trousers and wade through to get to the car! Thankfully, we made it home without incident, but I found this unnerving to say to least. I'm impressed that Sagar still makes it into work on his motorbike in these conditions, but I think he sees it as a bit of a challenge rather than a risk!
Here is a video from Wet Friday taken from our apartment balcony. The rain was like this all day:
Typically, the monsoon is not debilitating although it does make travelling more difficult when heavy. An umbrella is an important accessory and there is usually some rain every day, and heavy rain once every few days. July is normally the heaviest month, so we've got three more weeks for the monsoon to show us what it can do (hopefully when I'm home and dry!)
