Southern and south-eastern Europe have experienced a spate of thunderstorms that have resulted in significant rainfall and hail across parts of the Balkans. After a hot start to May in the area took temperatures into the high 20s celsius, thunderstorms widely developed from Monday.
One particular thunderstorm, which developed over Slavonski Brod in Croatia, reportedly brought egg-sized hail, with 38.2mm of rain being recorded.
Farther east, in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, storms on the Wednesday brought 1cm hailstones that coated the ground white, while 22.7mm of rain was recorded. The storms across Burgas also brought notably strong winds with a gust of 62.6mph (100.8km/h) recorded at the city’s weather station.
India, and specifically Mumbai, also experienced further thunderstorms in the past week when heavy showers developed over the city on Tuesday evening. The rainfall brought welcome relief from the recent oppressive heat, but also disrupted the road and rail networks.
Heavy rain and 50-60km/h gusts hit several Mumbai suburbs, including Borivali, Kandivali, Malad, Andheri and Bandra. The conditions caused train delays of up to 20 minutes due to debris on the overhead equipment, while the intense rainfall caused flash flooding on parts of the road network.
The stormy conditions continued into Wednesday and Thursday, with 24.5mm of rain recorded in Mumbai in a five-hour period on Wednesday evening, almost four times the city’s average rainfall for the whole month of May. The heavy rain also brought about unusually cool temperatures for the region, with a minimum of 20.6C recorded at the Santacruz weather station in Mumbai. This was the second lowest temperature recorded there in the month of May since records began.
The rain was caused by monsoon-like atmospheric conditions due to a low-pressure system across the region; this led to an incursion of moisture in the atmosphere that was further aided by westerly winds off the sea. This led to more moisture and therefore more instability in the atmosphere than usual, resulting in the widespread thunderstorms.
