While Chennai is possibly not as hot as some of the other places in Tamil Nadu like Karur, Tirunelveli etc which has been seeing one of the hottest October in recent times it has been seeing above normal temperatures nevertheless making it very uncomfortable phase of time as we wait for the retreating Southwest Monsoon to hasten its withdrawal.
It is an understatement to see highly dry and suppressed conditions has been prevailing over the southern parts of Peninsular India which is possibly reflecting in the extremely hot conditions that has been prevailing across most parts of Tamil Nadu.
Chennai is no different from rest of the state in this extremely warm spell at this time of the year. What is possibly standing out is how warm Chennai has been in the nights this year since the turn of October. On an average it is about 1.5°C warmer than the last two years and in some cases it has been more than 2.5°C warmer as well. The current pattern possibly confirms the role of thunderstorms in moderating the night time temperature over most parts of Tamil Nadu though a separate research possibly needs to be done to corroborate this assumption.
In the meanwhile Southwest Monsoon continues to make a slow retreat as the national capital has now officially seen the last of Monsoon2016. Over the next couple of days possibly we could see Monsoon withdraw from many areas of Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh as well along with possibly most of West Uttar Pradesh. Numerical Models continue to be inconsistent in the onset of Easterlies though we are sort of getting some consensus in the Easterlies moving into Bay of Bengal region between 17th & 20th of October. This may not translate into onset of Northeast Monsoon without the necessary rainfall happening. Stay tuned for further updates on the withdrawal of Southwest Monsoon and the progress of Northeast Monsoon
COMK would like to place its appreciation for Kea Weather AWS from where the data has been collected to understand the Chennai temperature pattern as part of this post