Showers cool city, but don’t fill up reservoirs
Officials at the Regional Meteorological Centre have forecast cloudy atmosphere on Thursday
Chennai: Here is some good news for water-starved Chennaiites. The city and its suburbs are likely to get more rains for the next few days. Though the city on Wednesday witnessed sudden spells of rain, there was no encouraging rainfall in the catchment areas of reservoirs that supply drinking water to the city.
Officials at the Regional Meteorological Centre have forecast that the city will remain cloudy throughout the day on Thursday. Thunderstorm may occur along with rain in Chennai during evening and afternoon. The office has forecast isolated rainfall in the interior parts of Tamil Nadu.On Wednesday evening, office-goers returning home were caught unawares due to the moderate rainfall of about 28.4 mm.
Thambi Narayanan, deputy director-general of the meteorological department, Chennai, said on Wednesday Chennai witnessed convectional rainfall. “It was formed when sea breeze came in the afternoon from sea to land and southwest monsoon flowing from west to east and both met at one point, which led to forced convection.”
However despite the heavy downpour, the maximum temperature recorded at Nungambakkam was 36.7 mm and the minimum was 28.3 mm with a humidity of about 87 per cent. Similarly, the maximum temperature at Meenambakkam was 36.0 degree C and the minimum temperature was 23.3 degree C. A rainfall of 17.8 mm with a humidity of about 90 percent was recorded.
Meanwhile astro meteorologist S..Ramachandran predicted that heavy downpour would occur till July 31. “ We are going to have excellent rainfall throughout this month. July 31 to August 5 again will be a dull period. Cyclone or depression will occur at the Bay of Bengal from August 8 to 18 August,” he said. According to CMWSSB, the storage in the city lake levels continued to be parched. The storage of water level at the reservoirs was recorded at 928 mcft as against last year’s 2,088.