Chennai received moderate rains in the city and neighbourhood breaking jinx of one-week dry spell. The last rains on 28th October and first of the Northeast Monsoon were followed by insignificant weather activity. The presence of cyclonic circulation in the Southwest Bay of Bengal off Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu coast has triggered these showers. The base observatory Nungambakkam recorded 32mm and airport Meenambakkam was almost there with 33mm rainfall in 24 hours till 8.30 am today.
The month of November is the rainiest of all for Chennai with an average amount of 374.4mm and drops sharply to 177mm in December. The variation is very large in the quantum of rainfall this month. While the lowest rainfall in Chennai was observed twice in the recent past with just 47mm in 2012 and 50.5mm in 2016, the rainiest month in the last decade was November 2015 with a deluge of 1049.3mm. Incidentally, the year of 2016 was a La Nina year and 2015 had the rival El Nino which otherwise propelled worst drought of Southwest Monsoon.
We are going through a strong La Nina scenario building up in the Pacific and so keep our fingers crossed and hope it to be little soft to spare November from an absolute misery.
The cyclonic circulation is likely to persist and remain favourable to energize northeasterly flow along the coast of Tamil Nadu. Consequentially more rains are expected over the next three days from 05th to 07th November. The spread and intensity will be more in the first 24 hours for Chennai and less thereafter. Generally cloudy sky and moderate breeze will arrest the day temperature of Chennai at about 32°C and keep the night also comfortable with the mercury hovering at 24°C.
