After nearly a month-long break, rains returned to Mumbai on Thursday, giving much-needed relief from the rising heat.

The city has been receiving moderate to heavy rains since early morning.

The weather department has forecast light to moderate rains in the city and suburbs for the next 24 hours.

However, the showers also affected vehicular movement on Mumbai’s roads.

Motorists complained that traffic slowed down due to the rains. Some junctions on the arterial roads in the suburbs are witnessing heavy congestion.

Since it rained after a long gap, vehicle users said the roads in the city have become slippery and they were witness to a few incidents of two-wheelers and four-wheelers veering off the course after hitting the brakes.

A civic official said that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Mumbai has predicted “light to moderate rain in the city and suburbs” for the next 24 hours.

The official said that the island city, eastern suburbs and western suburbs recorded 8.11 mm, 15.87 mm and 12.45 mm of rainfall respectively in the last 24 hours ended at 8 am.

He said a high tide of 3.05 metres is expected at 4.43 pm in the Arabian Sea. A high tide coupled with heavy rains can cause flooding as water doesn't get drained into the sea at that time.

The intensity of rains had reduced since July-end and the megapolis was not getting much rains except drizzling, light rain or a few spells of moderate to heavy showers on most of the days since then.

In the past few days, the city witnessed bright sunny and sultry days.

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