The 70th Independence day saw Chennai scorch with the Airport observatory recording 38 degrees and the city observatory not far behind at 37.7 degrees. The absence of sea breeze till late in the evening made it an uncomfortable evening. The sea breeze moved ashore around 6 in the evening over places in South of Chennai while along the city Coastline it did not enter till about 8:00 PM which meant the temperature stayed around 32 degrees even at that time of the day. Even after entering sea breeze was very weak and inconsistent with the winds shifting back to Westerlies after an hour or so.
Except for the first two days of August the Airport Observatory in Chennai has recorded above 35 degrees for the entire first fortnight of this month. As a matter of fact except for 2009 all the other years has seen the first fortnight of August record lower temperatures than 2016. 2009 saw all the days except one record above 35 degrees in the first fortnight. It would be interesting to observe how the remaining days of August stack up against 2009 when the month winds down. With dry weather conditions expected mostly for the remaining days of August we could possibly end up getting very close to seeing the hottest August in a decade.
Today also is likely to be another hot day for Chennai with temperatures expected to stay around 37 / 38°C. Models indicate another day with no sea breeze possibly leading to a very uncomfortable evening which is more a June phenomenon when the Southwest Monsoon makes its onset over Peninsular India. Most of Tamil Nadu is expected to see above average temperatures with one or two places in the North Coastal TN getting close to 39 degrees as well.
With the upper level winds more leaning in from the Northwest bringing in drier continental air the chance of thunderstorms developing is less along with more stable conditions in atmosphere which is expected across the region. It appears for the next couple of days similar conditions will continue with dry weather dominating.