Sunny weather spurs heavy voter turnout
Barring spells of rain at some parts of Malappuram, Wayanad and Kollam none of the places received rainfall during the polling hours.
Thiruvananthapuram: Contrary to the prediction of the Indian Meteorology Department (IMD) and the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA), the weather was normal in most parts of the state ensuring heavy turnout of voters at almost every polling station.
Barring spells of rain at some parts of Malappuram, Wayanad and Kollam none of the places received rainfall during the polling hours. The KSDMA had warned the public on lightning and thunderstorm from 2 pm to 8 pm.
However, Kerala witnessed brisk polling in the morning hours due to the weather forecast and the polling percentage steadily continued till evening.
The IMD had forecast thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds (speed reaching 40-50 km per hour) and lightning at isolated places very likely over Kerala on poll day.
Thundershowers coupled with thunderstorm for almost an hour past midnight on Monday produced cool climate on Tuesday morning in Chalakkudy and Ernakulam constituencies prompting voters to come in large numbers early on to vote.
However, the climate turned sunny by noon, but this did not deter voters from marching to polling stations before noon as many of them expected thundershowers in the evening as per the predictions of the Met department.
However, the whole polling period passed off without any inclement weather and voters continued to pour into the stations till the last hour.
The hot climate prevailing in the whole of Central Kerala a week ago paved the way for much better weather in the polling day owing to sporadic rain in the region in the past few days.