NE monsoon likely  to set in next week

CHENNAI: The Northeast monsoon is likely to set in next week as conditions are slowly becoming favourable. After a brief interval, rainfall activity was back in Chennai on Wednesday. The Nungambakkam weather station has recorded 17 mm rainfall.   

S Balachandran, Deputy Director-General of Meteorology, said the withdrawal of southwest monsoon from across the country was likely to happen around October 20 after which there would be some consensus on the onset of northeast monsoon.

As per the IMD, the usual onset date of northeast monsoon was October 20 and this year the onset was expected much earlier, but formation of two cyclonic storms simultaneously in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea had altered the weather conditions and delayed the monsoon.

Balachandran said interior Tamil Nadu and coastal districts would get good rainfall and there was also an upper air cyclonic circulation over Kerala, besides convective activity.

“For Chennai, the sky condition is likely to be cloudy. Rain or thundershower is likely to occur in some areas. Maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to be around 33 and 26 degree Celsius respectively,” he said. In the last 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Wednesday,  Mettupalayam recorded the highest rainfall of 80 mm.