Dry and hot days ahead of Mumbai and Chennai

While the weather in Delhi, North India, parts of East India and Central India have been unusually rainy in the last few days, Mumbai and Chennai in the peninsular India were seen experiencing dry and hot days with no hopes of rain. Let’s find out what the remaining days of March have in store for these two coastal cities:

Mumbai - Weathermen at Skymet Meteorology Division in India tell us that Mumbai has been bereft of any weather activity in March, inspite of rain in nearby cities of Pune and Nashik, owing to its terrain. Mumbai lies on the other side of the Western Ghat which prevents it from receiving any rain. And since Mumbai is topographically different from Pune and Nashik, with sea on one side and Ghats on the other, temperatures are frequently on the rise. Therefore, the Weather in Mumbai towards mid-March enters a phase where summers begin and afternoons are extremely dry and hot. No wonder the normal average rainfall figure for Mumbai for the month of March is 0.2 mm, the least amount of rainfall for the city throughout the year.

“Rain in Mumbai picks up only towards April and March remains the hottest with an average maximum temperature of 37.6⁰C. In the coming days the weather in Mumbai will turn even hotter with maximums continuously rising. Nights too will be slightly warm with minimums settling around 25⁰C”, says G.P Sharma of Skymet’s meteorological division.

Chennai - Nestled in the east coast of South India, Chennai lies in the tropical zone which makes the weather in in the city extremely hot and humid throughout the year. However, summer season officially begins in the month of March in Chennai. It is around this time that the temperatures start rising to settle in the thirties. According to the latest weather update by Skymet’s meteorological division in India, the maximum temperature in Chennai yesterday was 32⁰C which is expected to rise further in the coming days. Barring patchy clouds, the sky is expected to be mainly clear with very scarce possibility of rain.

“A change in the weather is mainly observed due to the wind patterns, like a convergence or confluence of humid winds from the sea and dry winds from the land or some change in the humidity and pressure levels. So there has to be some perturbation in the weather to bring any rain or thunderstorm, which is highly unlikely in the month of March”, explains G.P Sharma OF Skymet Meteorological Division. Chennai observes only one day of rain, (rain frequency 0.3%) in the month of March.

Meanwhile, there is forecast of dry weather in most parts of South India, except for extreme southern part of Kerala where light rain is expected on the 19^th and 20^th March.

Photo by happytellus.