The India Meteorological Department has placed four Gujarat districts — Ahmedabad, Anand, Surendranagar and Rajkot — under a red alert for August 1, 2026, warning of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in these areas.
A further 12 districts, including Banaskantha, Vav-Tharad, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Aravalli, Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Morbi, Botad and Kutch, have been placed under an orange alert, with isolated spots expected to see heavy to extremely heavy rain.
The alert follows an even wider red-alert list issued a day earlier on July 31, when 13 districts including Vadodara, Narmada, Chhota Udepur, Surat, Tapi, Dang, Navsari and Valsad were on red alert, prompting school and college closures in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Anand and Kheda.
Anganwadis in Ahmedabad will remain shut until August 3 as a precaution, according to district authorities, even as the red alert list has narrowed for August 1.
The state’s disaster response machinery has been placed on high alert, with authorities holding preparedness meetings to coordinate a response to the ongoing spell of severe weather.
The IMD’s forecast for August 2 points to a further easing, with eight districts expected to come under a yellow alert as the heaviest spell of rain moves past the state.
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.
Gujarat has seen an active monsoon through late July, with several districts already recording rainfall well above the seasonal average for this point in the year.
The state government has asked district collectors in affected regions to keep emergency helplines active and to coordinate with the State Emergency Operation Centre through the alert period.
Photo by Rakesh Krishna Kumar, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
