Chennai and Tamil Nadu Weather Update: Thursday, November 14

Vanakkam! It gives one great joy to report that the city’s air quality level continues to be satisfactory, quite in contrast with the nation’s capital, where it is deteriorating. As for the weather, the city hasn’t seen any sustained rain for many days now but the weather readings at the Chennai Met Office of the India Meteorological Department continue to suggest a build-up towards the return of the North-East monsoon.

Read | Chennai and Tamil Nadu Weather Forecast: Friday, November 15

It's just a matter of the several and varied pieces of the atmospheric jigsaw puzzle falling into place. So, the Chennai Met Office’s Nowcast at 8 am declares winds to be a weather-friendly easterly to north-easterly under partly cloudy skies with light rain forecast in some areas.

At 8.15 am, the winds were blowing in a north-easterly direction, at 5.2 km/hr. The temperature was 29.4 degrees Celsius and the dew point temperature was 28 degrees Celsius, with relative humidity at 92 per cent.

Scattered rain is the call for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry as a whole for the rest of the day and even tomorrow (Friday), with heavy rain or thunderstorms and lighting being predicted at isolated places over Tamil Nadu.

This is even as tweets reported sudden thunderstorms and heavy rain from different parts of the state during the 24 hours ending this Thursday morning. This will be the pattern of weather until the ‘big one’ materialises!

Suffice to say that this ‘warm-up’ session for a keenly awaited revival of the North-East monsoon must go on for some time before it reclaims its mojo.

After all, the Bay of Bengal must recoup the stupendous levels of energy lost in hosting and sustaining two massive cyclones — Kyarr, and more recently Bulbul — to get its act together.—

The storms had robbed the Bay of its very vitals, draining it so heavily that it has taken 12 days already for some semblance of order to return, for the winds to once again turn easterly-to-north-easterly).

The winds will now have to build to a specific height in the atmosphere, and sustain the direction with assured moisture content, before the monsoon rains can revive. It’s just a matter of time now.

Given this context, private weather forecasters see partly cloudy skies turning mostly sunny punctuated by passing showers, a trend that can extend well into the night as well.

So, domestic private weather forecaster Skymet Weather sees the possibility of showers breaking out at around 10 am and lasting a while before the skies clear up for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

On cue, international forecaster AccuWeather sees partly cloudy skies with easterly winds to begin the day with. An alternately cloudy and sunny day with the odd shower might turn mostly cloudy at night with spotty showers. The temperature may peak to 31 degrees Celsius with a real feel of 37 degrees Celsius, humidity of 78 per cent and a cloud cover of 50 per cent.

 

 

 

Weather.com, an IBM Business, assesses that it will mostly be a stormy day with thunderstorms ruling the roost. It will start partly cloudy, but graduate to scattered thunderstorms to heavy thunderstorms as the day wears on. The temperature may range between 29-30 degrees Celsius with humidity in the high 70s and low 80s (in per cent).

 

 

 

 

 

 

WeatherBug cannot but wholeheartedly agree with its peers and says partly cloudy skies with east-to-north-easterly winds could morph into partly cloudy conditions with a 40 per cent chance of rain and thunderstorms later into the day and partly cloudy conditions with a 65 per cent chance of rain and thunderstorms into the night. The temperature may peak to only 29 degrees Celsius (feels like 34 degrees Celsius) thanks to the thunderstorm cover with humidity at 75 per cent.

 

 

The city's weather bloggers and the Twitterati continued their vigil for the much-awaited return spell of the North-East monsoon: