Erstwhile very severe cyclone ‘Nivar’ that hit the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts during the small hours of Thursday weakened two rounds into a cyclone the same afternoon, and was expected to weaken as a deep depression and further into a depression into the night.

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The 24 hours ending in the morning brought extremely heavy rainfall over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal and Rayalseema and heavy to very heavy over Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Some of the significant rainfall recorded are (in cm): Chengalpattu-31; Pondicherry-30; Cuddalore-28; Sholinganallur- 22; Kavali, Vanur and Nellore- 14 each; Tirupathi-13; Poondi and Numgambakkam-12; Vandavasi-11; and Vellore-8.

No respite yet for TN coast

But the coast can hardly afford to lower its guard since the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that a fresh low-pressure area would form around the same area that ‘Nivar’ took birth from farther into the South Bay of Bengal, and put it under watch for intensification as have most of the global models.

A second consecutive storm is in the making, apparently aiming to hit the coast with a southerly bias than ‘Nivar’ (South Coastal Tamil Nadu and adjoining Sri Lanka) early in December and emerging into the Arabian Sea. By this time, a third ‘low’ would have taken shape over the South-East Bay of Bengal.

The short-to-medium guidance from the IMD too tends to attest to these developments but these are early days yet to take a call on these successor systems except that the first one would take shape in three days’ time (around Sunday) off the Sumatra coast, where an assembly-line of storms could be traced, going back in time.

Very heavy rains to return

An extended outlook valid for December 1-3 hinted at a near-repeat of what the Tamil Nadu-Puducherry witnessed on Wednesday-Thursday with fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and thundershowers with isolated very intense rain being forecast over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala.

It would be scattered to fairly widespread rainfall or thundershowers with isolated heavy rainfall over Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema. Isolated to scattered rainfall or thunderstorms are predicted for the rest the South Peninsular India during this period, the IMD added.

Meanwhile on Thursday afternoon, ‘Nivar’ weakened over North Coastal Tamil Nadu and was located to 85 km North-North-West of Puducherry and about 95 km to West-South-West of Chennai. It was expected to continue to move in the same direction and weaken into a depression by later evening bringing widespread rain/thunderstorms over Andhra Pradesh, North Tamil Nadu and parts of Telangana.

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