CHENNAI: Very Severe Cyclonic Storm ‘Fani’, which dashed the hopes of bringing good rains in coastal Tamil Nadu, has triggered heat wave-like conditions in Chennai. On Tuesday, Chennai breached 40 degree Celsius for the first time this year and it is going to get worse by the weekend. The only chance for Chennaites to see some rainfall activity would be on Wednesday as the cyclone comes relatively closer to the city before re-curving away towards Odisha coast.
Nungambakkam weather station in the City has recorded 40.1 degree Celsius and Meenambakkam in suburb, clocked 40.2 degrees, which 4.5 degrees and 3.5 degrees above normal, respectively. This is a spike of a whopping 6 degrees compared to Monday’s observed weather.
S Balachandran, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre, told Express that the spike was only for a brief period between 10.30 am and noon. “The north-westerly winds were strong in the morning under the influence of the cyclone and once the sea breeze has set in post afternoon, things got normalised.”
On Thursday, the sky condition is likely to be cloudy and the temperature will gradually increase after the cyclone moves totally away from Tamil Nadu coast.”Lot of atmospheric interactions are happening currently due to which many changes are happening. This is a classic example when signatures of both cyclone impact and sea breeze, can be witnessed. One part of the day can be hot and other part cloudy.”
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts Nungambakkam station to breach 40 degrees constantly from May 3. Weather blogger Pradeep John said heat wave-like conditions would prevail in the first half of May.
“There can be some cloud cover and light showers Tuesday night and Wednesday in Chennai. But once the Cyclone Fani crosses Chennai latitude and goes north...the stronger the north west winds will become and you can see all the districts close to sea, will sizzle. Vellore, Tiruvallur, Chennai, Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Cuddalore, etc,” Pradeep said.
The cyclone is currently moving at a speed of about 22 kmph and is about 800 km south of Puri (Odisha) and 620 km southeast of Vishakhapatnam and about 660 Km northnortheast of Trincomalee (Sri Lanka). It is very likely to intensify further into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm during the next 12 hours, IMD bulletin said.