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The city of Latur and many other areas in the usually dry Marathawada region of Maharashtra are suffering from floods and flash floods. There are independent reports of cloud burst type of rainfall over Latur and consequent flash flooding in the city by the All-India Radio and Press Trust of India.
This is even as the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional centre in Mumbai did not forecast extreme rainfall for the district of Latur or any of the other districts of Marathawada — Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Parbhani, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad (now Dharashiv) and Hingoli — as part of its daily warnings on its website for May 27, 2025. The weather agency had predicted thunderstorm, lightning and strong surface winds for the day.
The only warning was in IMD’s national press release on May 27 which read “isolated heavy rainfall likely over Marathawada on 27th”.
The extreme rainfall and flooding come as a big shock for Latur which is one of the driest districts in Maharashtra and has been known to be drought prone. The water scarcity situation in the district in 2016 had forced the administration to ferry water by special trains.
The district has been going through a wet spell for the past three weeks. Latur had received 22.5 millimetres (mm) rainfall between March 1 and May 8 which was 11 per cent more than the normal for the period.
The seasonal rainfall increased to 39.8 mm by May 16 which was 67 per cent excess. The absolute rainfall figure then drastically increased to 245.5 mm on May 24, which was 774 per cent more than the normal for Latur. The excess in rains was at 745 per cent on May 27, with the absolute rainfall number at 264.5 mm.
The reason for the sudden increase in rainfall on May 27 could be the onset of the southwest monsoon (SWM) over the region. According to IMD, the monsoon had reached Pune and Sholapur in Maharashtra on May 26. The weather agency indicated on May 27 that the monsoon may advance further in the next two to three days.
Other atmospheric systems in the region could have also affected the rainfall on May 27. One of these systems was an upper air cyclonic circulation lay over central parts of Madhya Pradesh. Another similar system lay above south Chhattisgarh and adjoining Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.
“A shear zone runs roughly along the Lat. 17°N over the Indian Region in lower to upper tropospheric levels level tilting southwards with height,” IMD wrote in its press release of May 27. This is quite close to the latitude of Latur, 18.4°N. Another upper air cyclonic circulation also exists over north Konkan and east central Arabian Sea.
IMD has given a thunderstorm, lightning and strong surface winds warning for Latur for May 28 and no warning for May 29.