Comments
Vanakkam!
Is rain in the air?
Well, Chennaiites, it would be interesting to try out some old-fashioned forecasting techniques, which have been found to work almost always. After all, the physics of the atmosphere does not change, and is the same everywhere. So, here we go!
The higher the clouds, the finer the weather, goes the saying.
If you spot wispy, thin clouds up where jet airplanes fly, expect a spell of pleasant weather. But keep an eye on the smaller puff clouds (cumulus), especially in the morning or early afternoon. If the rounded tops of these clouds with flat bases grow higher than the one cloud’s width, then there’s a chance of a thunderstorm forming.
Blogger @Chennai_Rains signs in helpfully, saying that 'extreme coastal' parts of Chennai received rains early this (Saturday) morning.
Private weather forecaster Skymet Weather and international forecaster AccuWeather have posted a near unanimous outlook for Chennai, hinting at the possibility of a thunderstorm or two around noon today.
This came in even as Chennai had started to wonder how the adage 'change is the only constant' had been proved wrong again and again, weather-wise.
Because this (Saturday) morning had started off from where it had ended the previous day — cloudy enough, but humid and muggy.
Humidity shot up to as high as 100 per cent at 5.30 am, with nothing to speak about on the wind front (virtually calm, at a miserly 1.1 km/h), as the Chennai Met Office (India Met Department) observed. Phew!
But it had said that while generally cloudy conditions may prevail, light rain may occur in some areas.
Maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to be around 32- and 26 degree Celsius, respectively. Light to moderate rain is likely to occur at a few places over the larger Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region.
The Met Office has also forecast heavy rain at isolated places over Tamil Nadu (especially in the Erode, Krishnagiri, Salem and Dharmapuri districts).
An extended outlook said that isolated to scattered rain over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry would become fairly widespread to isolated heavy on Monday and Tuesday.
So, what's the outlook, going forward?
A couple of Chennai's own bloggers and private weather forecasters are hopeful. So much so, @ChennaiRains used the current recess to break into a song:
The blogger was not shooting from the hip. Hardly!
For he had explained in an earlier post that 'a sequence of events in the background' could 'force our attention' to the South Bay of Bengal.
A buzz in that part of the Bay could be of interest to the Met subdivision of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and by extension, to Chennai.
Blogger @chennaiweather appeared to agree, predicting that rain would 'resume on Diwali day and continue for the next 2-3 days.'
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.