IMD issues red alert for 4 Gujarat districts as heavy rain continues on Aug 1

The India Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for four districts in Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Anand, Surendranagar and Rajkot — for August 1, 2026, citing the risk of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall.

Twelve additional districts, including Banaskantha, Vav-Tharad, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, Aravalli, Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Morbi, Botad and Kutch, have been placed under an orange alert for isolated heavy to extremely heavy rain.

The alert marks a narrowing from July 31, when the IMD had placed 13 districts, including Vadodara, Narmada, Chhota Udepur, Surat, Tapi, Dang, Navsari and Valsad, under red alert, leading to the closure of schools and colleges in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Anand and Kheda.

In Ahmedabad, anganwadis are set to remain closed until August 3 as a precautionary measure, even as the district’s red-alert status continues into August 1.

State disaster response teams remain on high alert, with officials holding coordination meetings to manage the impact of the ongoing rain spell across the affected regions.

Forecasts for August 2 suggest conditions will ease further, with eight districts expected to move to a yellow alert as the system weakens.

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.

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.

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