Vanakkam! Looks like a perfect November morning, pleasantly cool and with intermittent showers being forecast by almost all models, even as cloud banks await the signal to unleash a carpet bombing only they can deliver...
Look at the graphic below:
Yesterday, this column noted that it just a matter of time before the rains revive. There is a garland of cloudy and rainy weather approaching the Chennai coast in the morning as international forecaster Weather.com, an IBM Business, indicates in its outlook. The easterly-to-north-easterly winds promise to blow the garland ashore and break it down into a shower of petals all over the coast, interior and South Tamil Nadu and adjoining Kerala through the day.
Indeed, the city woke up to a cloudy morning and people and their pets soaked it in, especially on the beach. If your pets enjoy frolicking outdoors in the cool weather then share your pictures and videos with us on Twitter- @businessline, @vinsonkurian; Facebook- @TheHinduBusinessLine; Instagram- @hindu_businessline.
What other forecasters see
Another international forecaster, WeatherBug, sees a mostly cloudy day with a 50 per cent chance of showery storms, temperature at 26 degrees Celsius at 8.30 am, winds variable but presently north-north-west, though gusts are from from East-North-East and humidity is at 94 per cent.
A third international forecaster AccuWeather (below) looks at clouds reaching out from a north-easterly direction from the Bay of Bengal with an advance parcel sitting bang over Chennai and Nellore in adjoining South Andhra Pradesh, accompanied by a sound and light show — lightning and thunder — just off the Nellore coast in the morning (as captured by WeatherBug). The pattern of cloud distribution is more or less the same as Weather.com has pointed out.
AccuWeather found foggy weather over the city (or light showers) in parts of the city at around 8.30 am, temperature at 26 degrees Celsius (real feel of 33 per cent given the high humidity) with a maximum forecast of 30 degrees Celsius (real feel of 36 degrees Celsius), a partly sunny day with shower ending in a partly cloudy night with a stray showers. Winds were from north-north-west at 4 km/hr to start with.
An hourly forecast put out by Weather.com pointed to mostly cloudy weather breaking into isolated thunderstorms by 4.30 pm with temperature peaking at 30 degrees Celsius and humidity dipping late into the day, only to pick up in the night and triggering thunderstorms yet again.
Interestingly, a five-day outlook by Weather.com hinted at the possibility of four showery days (including today) until November 19 (Tuesday next).
Domestic private forecaster Skymet Weather saw partly cloudy to cloudy weather for today (Friday) for the city with the possibility for a night shower between 8 pm and 9 pm.
Last, but not the least, the Chennai Met Office of the India Meteorological Department, too, saw a generally cloudy day ahead with light rain in some areas.
The winds were northerly to north-easterly at almost 10 km/hr and humidity at 100 per cent. As for the rest of Tamil Nadu, the forecast favours scattered rain for today. This is even as parts of the State have been reporting isolated thunderstorms often accompanied with heavy showers as updates by bloggers and tweets by their followers suggest.
Aviation influenza
According to live flight tracker FlightRadar24, Chennai International Airport reported foggy conditions at 9.25 am, winds north-westerly at 7 km/hr, temperature at 26 degrees Celsius, and humidity at 94 per cent. Ambient weather and forecast conditions have a significant bearing on airport operations everywhere.
Flight operations reported an average delay of five minutes for arrivals and 15 minutes for departures, though prevailing weather in the morning was too benign to have any impact. The disruption index stood between 0.4 and 1.3 though, indicating good traffic flow at around 9.30 am.
A Saudia passenger aircraft operating between Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur was the only international flight overflying the Chennai city skies at 9.30 am, at a height of 38,000-plus feet. A Chennai-Varanasi IndiGo flight took off around that time, delayed by 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, Chennai’s bloggers and Twitterati are still waiting for that single easterly to north-easterly blast that will bring home the bacon!