THOOTHUKUDI: With the cyclone Burevi weakened into a depression and lay centred for more than 30 hours off Ramanathapuram district over Gulf of Mannar, adjacent Thoothukudi district received moderate rainfall as on 6 am Saturday morning.
Rainfall began to shower with a drizzling initially across the district since Friday evening and continued to shower moderately until 8 am on Saturday.
The rainfall data revealed that the district had received an average of 49.19 mm with some parts of the district witnessed heavy rainfall. Tiruchendur, Kayalpattinam, Thoothukudi town and Srivaikuntam registered heavy rainfall of 69 mm, 108 mm, 89.3 mm and 65.2 mm respectively.
The rain waters were stagnated in Thoothukudi, Kovilpatti and Kayalpattinam areas and the civic body had deployed motor pumps to dewater the residential areas.
The cyclone Burevi, currently located 40 km south-west of Ramanathapuram, had weakened into a depression on Friday night.
The India Meteorological Department said that the "depression" over Gulf of Mannar close to Ramanathapuram District coast remained practically stationary during past 30 hours. The Depression is likely to remain practically stationary over the same region and weaken into a Well Marked Low Pressure area during the next 12 hours, the bulletin said.
A professor and weather researcher T Raja told TNIE that the depression is also likely to move southward. Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and Kanyakumari will get heavy to very heavy rainfall if the depression moved southward, he said.
The Thoothukudi district, which is supposed to receive 354.7 mm of rainfall on an average during the northeast monsoon, had so far received 334.9 mm as on December 4. "The rainfall records show a deficiency of 6 percent for northeast monsoon", Raja said.
The northeast monsoon is likely to extend till the first week of January this year, and the district would get more rainfall than the calculated average, he said further.