Good morning, Chennai! Unfortunately, it won’t be a great morning for the rain-crazy denizens of this southern metropolis, as a low-pressure area in the neighbourhood, which had promised to shower a bounty of rain, has bypassed the city and moved away. In its infinite wisdom, the ‘low’ chose to head North and farther away, towards the North Andhra Pradesh coast.
A barrage of fiery thunderstorms that the ‘low’ had pulled in from the Arabian Sea, past Central Kerala and Interior Tamil Nadu during the dead of the last (Wednesday) night, also bypassed it.
Click here for the Saturday's Chennai weather report
Not that this wasn’t entirely anticipated. The Chennai Met Office of the India Meteorological Department and some of the city's own weather bloggers had aired their own suspicions with regard to the ‘promise’ held out by thunderstorms.
Thursday outlook
The Met expected a business-as-usual morning on Thursday for the city with a Nowcast at 5.30 am forecasting generally cloudy conditions, with light rain in some areas until 8.30 am.
This is more or less a take-off on its previous Nowcast, at 5.30 am, when it had predicted generally cloudy conditions with light rain in some areas. So far, it was proved right; rainfall recorded in the city since 8.30 am on Wednesday was practically nil, with winds being westerly-to-south-westerly. The 8.30 am update indicated that a quiet day will play out today. The only change is in wind direction — westerly to north-westerly, yielding little in terms of rain, with day temperatures ranging between 26 degrees C to 28 degrees C.
This, at a time when the winds are expected to be north-easterly — after all, this is what makes October-December the North-East monsoon season, Tamil Nadu's most productive rainy season.
And to round it all, relative humidity is forecast to be at a disconcertingly high 85 per cent.
Chennai bloggers mostly on cue
To be fair to them, the never-say-die Chennai weather bloggers who scan the skies even into the unearthly hours were mostly on cue through Wednesday night and on Tuesday as well.
Early on Thursday morning, @ChennaiRains wistfully described Chennai’s bad luck with the ‘hit or miss’ thunderstorms as follows....
...before lamenting later that...
TamilNadu Weatherman, tweeting at @praddyo6, had in a detailed note hinted at the journey of the ‘low’ through the uncharted waters off the Andhra Pradesh coast returning hardly anything for Chennai.
In an early morning post on Thursday, the ‘Weather of South India’ blog hinted at the approaching ‘insane thunderstorms’ hitting the North and West of Chennai, a phenomenon rare for the North-East monsoon season.
But the ‘sad turn’ of events — or lack thereof — saw an exasperated @thangarajscea put things in perspective through a tweet sympathising with the cause of those bloggers who failed to get it right this time, without naming any.
Outlook
Meanwhile, the Met Office's outlook for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is scattered rain until Saturday, with fairly widespread rain returning from Sunday. Moderate thunderstorms with lightning is likely to occur at isolated places.
The forecast for Thursday
The outlook for major cities in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for today (Thursday) is as follows:
Chennai: Generally cloudy with light rain in some areas
Puducherry: Generally cloudy sky with light rain
Vellore: Generally cloudy sky with light rain or drizzle
Salem: Generally cloudy sky with light rain
Tiruchirappalli: Generally cloudy sky with light rain or drizzle
Kodaikanal: Generally cloudy sky with light rain or drizzle
Madurai: Generally cloudy sky with light rain
Kanyakumari: Generally cloudy sky with light rain
Keep an eye out for BusinessLine’s report on the weather forecast for Chennai city, and for Tamil Nadu as a whole.
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