Coimbatore: The onset of summer looked like it would be a sweltering season. But the summer showers that followed had drenched the city and lowered temperature. The showers have also ensured that the city escaped the severest of the summer days, the Agni Natchathiram (Dog days) which falls from May 4 to May 28.
Normally, the average temperature during May would be around 34.5 degrees celsius. But this year, the showers and cloud cover had ensured that the average temperature so far hovered around 33.17 degrees, said S Panneerselvam, director of the Agro Climate Research Centre (ACRC) at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU). The temperature has dropped around 1.33 degrees from the average temperature.
“The peak temperature in May never went beyond 37 degrees,” said Panneerselvam. The hottest summer was in 2016, when the temperature went up to 38.5 degrees, he said.
While the city residents enjoyed the pleasant climate, summer traders who put up fruit and juice stalls in the city said their business had taken a hit. “Due to rain, there was no Agni Natchathiram this year,” said M Ashok, 39, a watermelon and juice seller on Bharathi Park Road. “As the climate has remained cool, people haven’t turned up this year to buy watermelons,” he said.
Ashok added that usually during summer he would sell around 1.5 tonnes of watermelons a day, but this year he has been selling only around 300kg to 400kg, he said.
“Usually on summer days, we would be very busy. There would be around 300 to 400 people coming in daily. But this season we have been seeing only 100 people daily,” said M Raja Sekar, 40, another watermelon seller in the city.
M Ilavarasi, 30, had set up a juice and sherbet pushcart near Sai Baba Colony expecting good business this summer. “But as the rain has kept the city cool, I didn’t get the expected patronage,” she said. “I expected around 100 people to turn up, but only 50 people have been coming every day,” she said.