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Istanbul's disaster management authority has issued a fresh rainfall warning for the city and its surrounding region, cautioning that a wave of cool, wet weather moving in from the Balkans is set to intensify through the day and persist into midweek.
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's Disaster Coordination Center, known as AKOM, said the system would affect Istanbul and the broader Marmara region, bringing a sharp drop in temperatures alongside the rain.
Forecasters expect showers that began locally in the morning in districts such as Tuzla, Cekmekoy and Sile to spread and strengthen by afternoon, with rainfall reaching 20 to 40 mm across the European side, the Bosphorus area and the Anatolian side. Temperatures are expected to fall steadily through the evening, settling around 16 degrees Celsius.
According to AKOM's projections, the wet weather will not pass quickly. The system is expected to remain active across the region until late Wednesday, with winds blowing intermittently from the north at storm force, reaching speeds of 30 to 60 kilometers per hour.
The shift is expected to bring temperatures down by six to eight degrees in a short span, pushing conditions back toward a more spring-like feel. Officials are forecasting repeated bouts of heavy rain across the province, with some areas likely to see especially intense thunderstorms accompanied by downpours of 60 to 100 mm.
In anticipation of possible disruptions from the heavy rainfall, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has placed a large-scale emergency response on standby across the city.
More than 7,000 personnel, 7,038 in total, along with 2,137 vehicles and pieces of heavy machinery have been deployed and readied throughout the province.
The response includes 926 firefighters equipped with 548 vehicles, 213 motor pumps and 523 submersible pumps. Istanbul's water and sewerage authority, ISKI, has mobilized 1,056 personnel and 649 vehicles, while the municipality's road maintenance division has 513 workers and 151 vehicles on standby. Waste management teams from ISTAC have deployed 538 personnel and 134 vehicles, and municipal police have readied 1,270 officers and 203 vehicles.
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Additional resources include 629 personnel from the parks department, 152 from traffic management, 486 from the municipality's on-site solutions unit, 377 from public bus operator IETT, 300 from Metro Istanbul, and 791 personnel with 252 vehicles from gas distributor IGDAS.
Despite the scale of the preparations, AKOM said that as of its latest update, no significant problems had been reported as a result of the rainfall.
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