Northeast Monsoon notched up a gear yesterday, helped by the favorably located Low Pressure Area over the Comorin Sea Area, to become active over Coastal Tamil Nadu & South TN. The entire coast line all the way from Chennai to Kanyakumari received rains with many places coming under heavy rains as the LPA recycled moisture from the warm waters of Bay of Bengal. While the stretch between Delta & Pondicherry recorded the heaviest rains during the day hours yesterday, as Friday started giving way to Saturday the action shifted further South towards South TN with delta continuing to be in the mix.
Pondicherry recorded 142 mm, nearly 11 cms of which fell before 5:30 PM last evening while Parangipettai had touched 17 cms by 5:30 PM yesterday. Karaikal recorded a burst of rains around midnight with 8 cms being recorded between 11:30 PM & 2:30 AM. In all this Chennai & suburbs also recorded moderate rains at many places though the IMD AWS at Ennore Port recorded more than 9 cms due to favorable storm movement that went North of Chennai. Many centuries possibly will be coming up once the TNSDMA daily rainfall report is available by around 8 AM.
The LPA which is at Comorin Sea & adjoining areas is possibly at one of the best positions to give rains across most parts of Tamil Nadu including interior areas. Due to the moisture drag created by the LPA we will see some trapped moisture effect in the eastern slopes of Western Ghats bringing heavy rains at a few places along the Ghats in TN & parts of Kerala as well. With the LPA expected to stay in a near stationary position for the next couple of days around the region similar rainfall pattern is expected to continue until Tuesday possibly post which a gradual westward movement into Arabian Sea by the LPA may slightly alter the dynamics. But as things stand it appears we might be heading for a possibly wet Diwali over most parts of Tamil Nadu including Chennai
Today South TN & parts of South Delta could come under heavy rains as the circulation recycles moisture from Bay. Similarly as explained above places along the Ghats could come under very heavy rains in isolated places. North TN including Chennai may see a relatively less day of rains though on and off light to moderate rains may happen at times. Tomorrow depending on the slight movement of the LPA rains could increase once again for coastal areas like Chennai.