Tamil Nadu’s monsoon woes may not be over just yet

Chennai and its neighbourhood, along with Sri Lanka, will yet again bear the brunt of a heavy wet spell being piloted by a low-pressure area, taking shape over the Andaman Sea.

There has been an upper air circulation in the region already, which will descend to lower levels to set up the ‘low’ by Thursday, the Met Department said in an update.

The US Climate Prediction Centre has marked out the week from November 30 (Monday) to December 6, as the most critical period during which the rain fury might touch its peak.

Apart from Chennai, excess rain is being forecast for almost the entire Tamil Nadu and adjoining Kerala, heavier towards the South.

The weather warning issued by India Met Department on Tuesday is as follows:

Friday — Heavy rain at isolated places over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Saturday — Heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places over coastal Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, and heavy at isolated places over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

As is already known, the ‘low’ has its origin from a remnant of the prevailing Pacific typhoon In-Fa.

The typhoon has turned tail in the Northwest Pacific, and is now moving away from South Asia.

It would have been a different scenario had it continued to travel towards the West, entered South China Sea that lies next door to the Bay of Bengal.

But here, the East Coast – Tamil Nadu in particular – needs to deal with only a remnant ‘pulse’ of the typhoon. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts suspects that the ‘low’ may not be able to grow into a full-fledged storm. It sees a low-pressure area or a well-marked ‘low’ at work along the coast.

But that does not take away its capacity to generate intense and sustained rainfall, which was on show last week when the coast came face-to-face with a weather system of the same pedigree.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the low-pressure area over East-Central Arabian Sea had died out. An offspring trough (not amounting to a ‘low’) persisted, lying extended from South-East Arabian Sea to South Gujarat.

In the Bay of Bengal, a counterpart trough was parked off Sri Lanka in South-West Bay of Bengal.

Clouds had since moved out of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and coastal Andhra Pradesh, in what could be only a brief lull before a wet spell again.