Chennai lashed by sudden bout of rain, but no complaints

CHENNAI: Chennaites have been experiencing an unusual high-intensity rainfall in short bursts for the past few days in the late evening hours. Though there is no proper explanation for this phenomenon, the public, in fact, have no complaints as the rain is keeping day’s temperature under check.For the third straight day on Wednesday,  the city received rainfall between 5.30 and 7 pm.

The Nungambakkam weather station has received 23 mm of rainfall and the city maximum temperature was recorded at 34.2 degrees Celsius, which is 1.3 degrees below normal. Almost all parts of city recorded rainfall ranging from 10 mm to 30 mm.Noted weather blogger Pradeep John said the rainfall was a little unusual because it was not a regular convective rainfall.

It was caused by excess heat and the low-level winds are also not strong. There must be some moisture, and fast-moving evening storms are converging to deliver a high-intensity spell. The size of today’s clouds was huge and the spell was a little longer unlike past two days, he said.

Meanwhile, the Met officials have predicted heavy rainfall over the ghat region for the next two days.
“Heavy rain at a few places with isolated very heavy rain is likely to occur over the ghat areas of Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Theni and Dindigul districts,” according to Met bulletin.

Rainfall recorded in the past 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Wednesday shows that Chinnakalar (Coimbatore) has received highest rainfall in the State recording 17 cm followed by Valparai 15 cm, Devala (Nilgiris) 11 cm, G Bazar (Nilgiris) 8 cm, Periyar (Theni) 7 cm and Naduvattam (Nilgiris) 6 cm.