The city may get very minor relief by way of rains this week and next week with weather sites predicting a couple of centimetres or so of rainfall from Monday/ Tuesday.
But all hopes of a copious north east monsoon filling the city’s reservoirs seem to have evaporated with the failure of the monsoon now being a foregone conclusion. Chennai would have to rely on Krishna water next summer to solve its water supply problem.
Global weather website www.accuweather.com [1] predicts rain from late Sunday night through Monday evening.
For the whole month of December, it forecasts only five rainy days in Chennai. Weathermen are not hopeful of positive rainfall this year.
Usually, the Salem belt and the hilly regions receive substantial rainfall in southwest monsoon, while all other areas in the state receive rainfall during the northeast monsoon season “In the last 40 years, the state has received above average rainfall during the El Nino years.
But, this time, the monsoon has made our expectations crash,” said Dr V. Geethalakshmi, professor and head, Agro Climate Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.
Dr Y.E.A. Raj, deputy director general of meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, said the models were not indicating heavy rain this week.
“We can expect some rain from Tuesday for about four days. The system is still a low pressure and we are not sure whether it would intensify,” he added.
Links:
[1] http://www.accuweather.com