As heavy rain lashes Mumbai, Colaba radar defunct for 2 weeks

2 min readMumbaiUpdated: Jul 2, 2026 04:04 PM IST

Pedestrians amid heavy rain at Andheri in Mumbai on Tuesday. (Express Photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

At a time when Mumbai is reeling under heavy rain, the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) S-band Doppler radar at Colaba, which is used to issue short nowcast warnings, has remained out of service for nearly two weeks owing to a technical malfunction.

An S-band Doppler weather radar is a long-range weather radar used to detect rainfall, thunderstorms, cyclones, wind movement, and other severe weather.

Officials said the breakdown of the Colaba radar has not affected the weather forecasting system because the IMD is using its secondary Doppler radar, located at Veravali in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, to detect and forecast meteorological activities.

“The radar is non-functional because one of its spare parts has malfunctioned. The replacement is on the way from a Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) workshop at Bangalore. It was supposed to reach us this week, but the consignment was delayed due to the heavy rain,” an IMD official told The Indian Express.

“We use radar for live monitoring of current meteorological conditions and issuing short nowcast warnings. However, we use satellite imagery and numerical weather prediction for primary aspects of forecasting, which include issuing five-day forecasts and preparing weather charts. Therefore, the non-functionality of these radars has not impacted these aspects of forecasting,” the IMD official said.

The radar is 15 years old, and this is the second time in a year that it has malfunctioned.

S-band radar well-suited to India’s monsoon and cyclone-prone regions

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The Colaba radar has a surveillance radius of 500 km, while the Veravali radar has a surveillance radius of 250 km.

The Colaba radar is an S-band system, well-suited to India’s monsoon and cyclone-prone regions because its longer wavelength allows it to see through intense rain with minimal signal loss. The Veravali radar is a C-band system, which is useful for regional weather monitoring.

Over the past four days, Mumbai has received heavy rain. The city woke up to a red nowcast warning on Wednesday. On Thursday, the IMD’s Santacruz station recorded 205 mm of rainfall while the Colaba coastal observatory received 158 mm of rainfall till 8.30 am. Areas like Andheri, Powai, Bhandup, and Wadala recorded above 200 mm of rainfall.

Pratip Acharya is a seasoned journalist based in Mumbai reporting for The Indian Express. With a career spanning over a decade, his work demonstrates strong Expertise and Authority in critical urban issues, civic affairs, and electoral politics across Eastern and Western India.

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Started at The Times of India in Kolkata (2014).

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