The unexpected heavy rain on Thursday left people of Chennai surprised and office goers struggled to head back home due to traffic jams and water logging across the city.
The Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, in its evening bulletin on Thursday said that significant rainfall was witnessed from 0830 hr to 1815 hr with MRC Nagar recording the maximum rainfall of 176.5 mm followed Nungambakkam AWS (146.5 mm); Meenambakkam ISRO AWS (102 mm) and Anna University (81 mm).
Going by the data of rainfall noticed in Chennai’s Nungambakkam, the 2015 annual rainfall (2,095 mm) in the city is overtaken by 2021 (2,174 mm) and is the third wettest year of all time behind 2005 (2,566 mm) and 1996 (2,451 mm), said a tweet by Pradeep John, an amateur weather blogger under the name Tamil Nadu Weatherman.
“One of the craziest spells of lifetime. Chennai City (Nungambakkam) beats 2015 annual rainfall,” said John.
The sudden spell even surprised amateur weather enthusiasts. “Apologies to everyone for not able to pick up this high intensity rains today. No #Weather models picked,” tweeted ChennaiRains said.