The week leading up to New Year is likely to be pleasant for Chennai residents. The latest bulletin from Regional Meteorological Centre predicts cloudy skies and light showers in some areas of the city for the next 48 hours.
According to a report in The Times of India, light rain in the coastal districts of the state is expected around the first week of January. This is due to the extension of the Northeast Monsoon into January, N Puviarasan, director of Area Cyclone Warning Centre at RMC, Chennai said. Popular weather blogger Pradeep John, who runs Tamil Nadu Weatherman on Facebook, said, “Hopefully, there is some light rains expected around new year for KTC (Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Chennai) and there is also some rains in 1st week of January.”
According to RMC’s bulletin, light to moderate rain is likely to occur at isolated places over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry until December 29.
On Thursday, as the solar eclipse is set to take place, thunderstorm with lightning is likely to occur at isolated places in the state.
Christmas Eve and Christmas days saw rainy mornings in the city. Pradeep John wrote, “Last time Chennai got Christmas rains was in way back in 2003.”
On Christmas, Nagapattinam and Karaikal recorded most rainfall with Nagapattinam receiving 139 mm and Karaikai getting 132 mm. In KTC zone, minimum rainfall on Christmas Day was 5 mm while Sholinganallur recorded highest at 9 mm.
Observations for the Northeast Monsoon season, beginning October 1 until December 25 show that the state of Tamil Nadu has received fairly good amount of rainfall, receiving 3% more than normal.
Tamil Nadu received 450 mm rainfall on average while its normal quantity stands 438 mm. Nilgiris has recorded most amount of rainfall showing an excess of 66% deviation from normal. Nilgiris has recorded a whopping 780.4 mm rainfall while its normal recording is 469.1 mm
In Chennai, however, there was a deficit of 17% this season. The city received 613.3 mm rainfall while its normal for this period is 740.4 mm.