Next spell of rain not before Dec 19

CHENNAI: WITH several interior districts of Tamil Nadu facing deficit rainfall, weather experts are hoping the last week of December could bring more rains to bridge the deficit the State faces.
“The coastal districts are likely to receive some rainfall by this month-end, but the intensity of the spells have to be watched,” YEA Raj, former deputy director-general of meteorology, said and added that the Meteorological department has the capacity to forecast only five days’ weather. “So, what is going to happen in the last week of December is still a wait-and-watch scenario,”he added.

Noted weather blogger Pradeep John said that during the core Northeast monsoon, coastal, delta and northern districts received good rainfall. These districts receive 75 per cent of the annual rainfall during this period. But, the monsoon has miserably failed in Ramanathapuram, Pudukottai, Tiruchy and Coimbatore.

The district-wise daily/seasonal rainfall distribution until December 11 shows that Ramanathapuram has received 45 per cent below-normal rains, Pudukottai 44 per cent, Coimbatore 42 per cent and Tiruchy 38 per cent deficit rains so far. The districts that received above-normal rains are Tirunelveli 57 per cent, Nagapattinam 38 per cent, Chennai 30 per cent, Tiruvannamalai 27 per cent and Tiruvallur 25 per cent.
Between October 1 and December 11, Chennai received 937.3 mm of rainfall as against the normal 721.1 mm.

“The reason for such huge deficit in interior districts was that none of the four weather systems that formed in the Bay this season penetrated the State. The low pressure that formed in the first week of November brought good rainfall to the northern districts, including Chennai.“The second low pressure that formed in mid-November moved away towards Odisha and then came cyclone Ockhi that smashed southern districts like Kanniyakumari. The fourth depression totally missed Tamil Nadu and went towards the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast,” he said and added that the next active spell was likely to kick in after December 19, but so far nothing big has been forecast.