CHENNAI: Heavy rain with strong winds continued to lash Chennai and other parts of the State for yet another day on Monday. The regional weather centre, Chennai has predicted more rain in the coming days.
Many parts of Tamil Nadu received substantial rains over the weekend. Pudukottai with 8 cm of rain led the list, Thiruvallur (6 cm) and Chennai and Thanjavur (4 cm). Within the city, T Nagar, Teynampet, Parrys, Nungambakkam, Egmore and Adyar saw heavy rain with strong winds that almost knocked things over on Monday evening. Meteorology officials have confirmed that this convection rain will continue as squalls in the coming days.
“Northern Tamil Nadu is more tropically favourable for the south-west monsoon, being closer to the monsoon trough, a major rain-giving system for Chennai and surrounding areas. This region will see more rains, especially thunderstorms” says meteorologial expert YEA Raj.
Rain lashing the city and northern parts of the State this past week has brought more than a mere respite from the high mercury levels. It has lifted the spirits of water managers who have been struggling to supply adequate water to the city.
A senior Metro Water official said that the inflow into the reservoir in the past 3 days is about 50 million cubic feet, equal to two days of water supply for the city.
“The inflow into the reservoirs may not be a lot, but it has kept our hopes alive for a wet spell,” said a Metro Water official.
Currently, the four reservoirs —Red Hills, Poondi, Cholavaram and Chembarambakkam — which supply water to the city, have only 870mc feet of water.
The weather observatory at Nungambakkam has already calculated 20 cm of cumulative rainfall in the early half of the monsoon.
The change in weather which has promised more rain this week, has lifted the spirits around the city. “The weather was hot through the afternoon when I stepped out for lunch but it suddenly dropped and started raining cats and dogs,” says Aarthi G, who works at a tech park in the heart of the city.