Gujarat rain: IMD keeps 4 districts on red alert for August 1

The India Meteorological Department has kept four districts in Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Anand, Surendranagar and Rajkot — under a red alert for August 1, 2026, warning of continuing heavy to extremely heavy rainfall.

An orange alert covers 12 further districts, including Banaskantha, Vav-Tharad, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Aravalli, Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Morbi, Botad and Kutch, where isolated heavy to extremely heavy rain is expected.

The alert has eased slightly from July 31, when 13 districts — Vadodara, Narmada, Chhota Udepur, Surat, Tapi, Dang, Navsari and Valsad among them — were under red alert, leading to school and college closures in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Anand and Kheda.

Anganwadis in Ahmedabad will remain closed until August 3 as a precautionary step, local authorities said, even as the city continues under red alert for another day.

Disaster management teams across Gujarat remain on high alert, with district administrations coordinating rescue and pumping resources in flood-prone areas.

The IMD’s outlook for August 2 points to further easing, with eight districts expected to shift to a yellow alert as the weather system moves past the state.

The IMD’s warning system uses a four-colour scale of green, yellow, orange and red, with red reserved for extremely heavy rainfall that requires immediate action from local authorities and the public.

Fishermen along the Gujarat coast have been advised not to venture into the sea during the alert period, as the same weather system bringing heavy rain has also stirred up rough conditions offshore.

The India Meteorological Department has attributed the spell of heavy rain to an active monsoon system moving across the western coast, a pattern it has tracked closely through the final week of July.

Disaster management authorities in the affected districts have been placed on standby, with local administrations coordinating rescue teams and pumping equipment in low-lying areas prone to waterlogging.

Photo by Rakesh Krishna Kumar, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0