Rain brings relief to water-starved Coimbatore

The showers are considered to come as a blessing, as the district was staring at a water crisis due to decreasing storage levels at the Siruvani dam.

While the weather here was pleasant since morning with a cold breeze, the cloudy sky burst into rains intermittently. The farmers, who were desperately hoping for rain to save their crops, heaved a sigh of relief with the onset of the southwest monsoon.

Water managers are also happy as the rains are likely to increase the storage level in reservoirs in the coming days. Until recently, the district was staring at drinking water crisis as the storage level in Siruvani dam dipped to less than five feet as against its full reservoir level of 50 feet over lack of rains. Following the monsoon showers, particularly in the catchment areas, the water level in the dam has been rising gradually, sources said.

The catchment areas in Siruvani received 24 mm of rain over a period of 24 hours till 8 am on Tuesday. As monsoon is expected to intensify in the coming days, Corporation officials here are hopeful of increasing the water supply to households. Many of the residential neighbourhoods were reeling under severe water shortage due to erratic supply.

The Agro Climate Research Centre at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has predicted the southwest monsoon to bring normal rains. While Coimbatore’s long-term mean rainfall is 189.8 mm, this year, it may see 175 mm and this deviation of minus 7.8 per cent comes under the normal category. Though rains brought in relief, several localities witnessed traffic congestion due to waterlogging.