With the start of March we are officially into the Summer season for the year 2019. While the exact onset dates of Monsoon / Summer / Winter could dynamically change depending on prevailing atmospheric conditions IMD maintains for the sake of record keeping specific dates for seasons. 1st January to 28th / 29th February is the winter season, 1st March to 31st May is the Summer Season / Pre Monsoon from the rainfall perspective. 1st June to 30th September is the Monsoon season and finally 1st October to 31st December is the Post Monsoon Season
But as we mentioned earlier the start of summer season is not uniform across the Indian Sub Continent with places like Chennai recording the hottest days of the year during the month of June many a time despite being officially classified as Monsoon season. Similarly South TN and West Interior TN sees its hottest period around March before pre monsoon thunderstorms & the return of Westerlies around April bring respite to the region. Today we could see most of Tamil Nadu except west interior TN see near normal temperatures due to the influence of Easterlies. Adjoining parts of Kerala like Palakkad also could see fairly hot conditions with few places in the stretch between Karur & Palakkad recording 38 / 39°C.
Yesterday saw parts of Coastal TN especially around North Coastal TN record light rains influenced by the North – South Trough running from Telangana to Comorin Sea Area. Later in the evening few places along the Western Ghats in South TN recording moderate to heavy thunderstorms bringing more than 5 cms rains to places like Sankaran Kovil in Tirunelveli district. While today the effect of trough is weaker than yesterday still we are likely to see some rains along the Western Ghats like yesterday with light to moderate rains likely in a few places.