Major rivers in Ratnagiri district, including Jagbudi, Vashishti, Kodavali, Shastri, Bav are flowing above the danger level. As a result, Khed, Chiplun, Lanja, Rajapur, Sangameshwar towns and nearby areas have been affected and residents are being shifted to safer places.
The mercury at the Safdarjung Observatory is expected to breach the 43-degree mark on Thursday and touch 44 degrees Celsius by Friday, according to the India meteorological department.
Heavy rains continued to pound Chennai and nearby districts on Monday under the impact of a cyclonic storm, which is likely to cross the coast in Andhra Pradesh on December 5.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Ayanagar weather station recorded 99.2 mm rainfall, the maximum in the city, during the 24-hour period ending at 8.30 am on Thursday.
The air quality had turned 'severe' on Saturday evening with stubble burning accounting for 32 per cent of Delhi's PM2.5 pollution, but firecracker emissions and calm winds made the situation even worse.
Suburban services were disrupted with trains on all the three lines -- western, central and harbour -- running late.
Delhi recorded an air quality index of 315 at 11:10 am. The last time the air quality hit such a poor level was in February.
However, some areas in south Mumbai, which witnessed a record rain on Wednesday, were still water-logged, they said. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted moderate to heavy rainfall in the city and suburbs and intense showers in some parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region in next 24 hours.
The Indian Meteorological Department, meanwhile, warned of intense spell of 30 to 50 mm rainfall per hour with strong winds in Mumbai and suburban areas.
Scientists at the India Meteorological Department warn that not only has India turned hotter in the last two decades, but that heat waves are projected to become more intense, have longer durations and greater frequency, thereby resulting in more deaths.
The cyclone would bring light to moderate rains at most places and 'heavy to very heavy downpour' at some places on November 6.
Schools and colleges are set to reopen on Monday in three adjoining districts of Chennai, Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur after remaining closed for nearly ten days in view of the monsoon fury.
It has also advanced into most parts of Tamil Nadu, some parts of south interior Karnataka and remaining parts of south Bay of Bengal, according to IMD.
The smog reduced the visibility to merely 300 meters in the morning affecting traffic, an official of the India Meteorological Department said.
Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday evening with a wind speed of 115-125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph as heavy rains lashed the coastal region, where several areas plunged into darkness due to power cuts and a large number of trees, electric poles and hoardings got uprooted.
Pollution levels in Delhi during the Diwali period are likely to remain in the higher end of the 'very poor' category in the absence of emissions due to fireworks, the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality monitor, SAFAR said.
Large swathes of the country reeled under heatwave conditions on Tuesday with Churu in Rajasthan recording a high of 48 degree Celsius.
Cyclone Biparjoy has left a trail of destruction in Gujarat's Kutch and Saurashtra regions as some 1,000 villages are still without power with hundreds of electric poles getting damaged, while several coastal villages were flooded due to heavy rains and incoming seawater, officials said on Friday, a day after the storm made landfall.
The overall AQI deteriorated further and touched the 268 mark, which falls in the poor category.
July and August are expected to receive 107 per cent and 104 per cent of rainfall
The UNICEF said an estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in the country.
Parts of Raigad, Ratnagiri districts in the coastal Konkan region and Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra, have been worst affected by the floods. Besides that, heavy rains have been pounding parts of Satara district.
According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research, the overall air quality of the national capital docked at 376 at 8:30 am on Tuesday.
'Southwest Monsoon has advanced into remaining parts of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab and thus it has covered the entire country today, the 26th June 2020,' the IMD said in its special Daily Weather Report.
Of that figure, a whopping 4,246 people died in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone.
As many as 38 flights, including 23 domestic and nine international, were diverted from the Delhi airport to nearby cities between 6-8.45 pm.
Meanwhile, water will be released from Chembarambakkam lake, one of the key drinking water sources to Chennai, since it was nearing capacity, the government said.
The reasons behind a spate of forest fires in the hills this year, though, could be multi-fold.
Authorities alerted people to avoid staying outdoors and L-G ordered to halt all civil construction activities across the city till Sunday.
Tropical storm 'Tauktae' (pronounced as Tau'Te) which had intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm, lies close to the Gujarat coast, the India Meteorological Department said. "The landfall process has started and will continue during next two hours," the IMD said.
The deep depression in the Arabian Sea has intensified into cyclonic storm "Ashobaa" and is expected to further develop into a "super cyclonic storm" in next 24-36 hours, the weather office said on Monday.
As power generation across northern and western India bore the brunt of the coal scarcity, spot prices at IEX rose to Rs 10.8 a unit during August 25-27, compared with Rs 8.7 a unit on August 22.
Addressing Indian workers at a medical camp in downtown Doha, Modi said he is aware of the issues being faced by Indian workers and the companies that bring them here.
'It is the most prone month for the development of cyclones in the pre-monsoon period.'
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
It is believed that the crop residue burning in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana are contributing to polluting the air.
'All El Ninos are not associated with the deficient monsoon.'
The maximum death toll has been reported from Idukki district, where 43 people have lost their lives so far, as per official estimates. 28 deaths were reported in Malappuram and 27 in Thrissur.
Even as Tauktae's intensity weakened, it left behind a trail of destruction with as many as 13 people losing their lives in different parts of Gujarat, including Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Patan, Amreli and Valsad, officials said.
Since 2000, India has had three serious droughts.
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