Met dept withdraws red alert for Chennai

S Balachandran, head, RMC, said that the well marked low-pressure area concentrated into a depression on Thursday evening and moved westwards at a speed of around 18 km/hour and lay about 100 km south-southeast of Chennai.

“This is likely to move west-northwestwards and cross north Tamil Nadu coast between Chennai and Puducherry early morning on Friday,” Balachandran said. Strong winds of up to 40 km/hour is expected along coastal districts during the landfall accompanied by heavy isolated showers.

Earlier on Thursday, several parts of the city received sporadic spells of heavy to very heavy rainfall while Tiruvallur received about 11 cm of rainfall and Cuddalore witnessed 10 cm of rainfall. The weather stations in Nungambakkam and Meenambakkam received 4.8 and 3.3 cm of rainfall respectively until 5.30 pm on Thursday.

On Friday, thunderstorm with heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur at isolated places over Tiruvannamalai, Ranipet, Vellore, Tirupattur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Salem, Erode, Namakkal, Coimbatore and Tiruppur, Kallakurichi, Villupuram, Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari and Chennai. As the sea conditions are expected to be rough for the next 24 hours, Met officials warned fishermen against venturing into the sea till Friday morning. Tamil Nadu has received 61 per cent excess rainfall during the ongoing northeast monsoon period starting October 1 till date, the state government said on Thursday