Chennai: While Chennai witnessed good showers up to 7 cm in many localities a couple of days ago, there wasn’t any major rainfall activity yesterday and today even at a time when many other parts of Tamilnadu witnessed good rainfall.
But the Met department says that the city will soon join in the list of places receiving rainfall thanks to two cyclonic circulations persisting over the bay. Not only that, as informed earlier by the department, the start of northeast monsoon winds remain unchanged and they will be striking the coast from 21 October onwards.
An official said, “Conditions are becoming favourable for withdrawal of southwest monsoon from the entire country by 20 October and conditions are also becoming favourable for the commencement of northeast monsoon rain over Tamilnadu thereafter. Also, a cyclonic circulation is persisting over south coastal Andhra Pradesh and another one is existing over southeast and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal. In the wake of this, heavy rainfall with thunderstorm and lightning is likely at isolated places over Tamilnadu and Puducherry for the next 48 hours.”
Regarding the forecast for Chennai, he said, “The city’s maximum temperature dropped up to one degree at 30.9 degrees Celsius from normal today thanks to formation of rain clouds. In the next 24 hours, the sky condition is likely to be generally cloudy. Rain or thundershower is likely in some areas.”
According to Skymet’s forecast, northeasterly winds have become dominant and the northeast monsoon is just around the corner. So, a few spells of rain are expected over Chennai and its suburbs during the next 24-48 hours. Thereafter, the weather may once again turn dry. However, isolated thunderstorm activities cannot be ruled out.