City, suburbs may witness wet spell till weekend

Speaking to DTNext, S Balachandran, director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, said that city’s suburbs would continue to witness moderate rains.

“Interior districts have already been receiving good rains and it will continue for two more days. Since there is no wind change, sky will be overcast in Chennai and there will be mild rains in some parts of the city,” he said. Areas like Maduravoyal, West Mambalam and Guindy experienced mild showers on Thursday.

According to the RMC website, “Wednesday’s upper air cyclonic circulation lies over North interior Karnataka and adjoining Telangana and extends upto1.5 km above mean sea level. Further, a trough formed on Wednesday from north interior Karnataka to south Tamil Nadu now runs from this system to Comorin (Kanniyakumari) area across south interior Karnataka and interior Tamil Nadu at 1.5 km above mean sea level.” The upper air cyclonic circulation over south coastal Andhra Pradesh and neighborhood has become less marked, it added.

A weather blogger in the city said, “Usually, there will be two or three troughs of low pressure that will form in Bay of Bengal in April and May and it will give rainfall across the state, especially to Chennai.” But, this time, there is no such powerful low pressure, but chances are high in the coming days for a depression in the Bay of Bengal, the blogger added. 

“South Tamil Nadu kept its date with the rains as Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli along with parts of Madurai and Kanniyakumari districts experienced heavy rains. While, parts of Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts also witnessed good rains on Wednesday night, there were no traces in northern districts,” he said. 

In the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Thursday, Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli district recorded a maximum rainfall of 83 mm, while Virudhunagar and Madurai districts also registered significant level of rainfall.