The last couple of days have seen Southwest Monsoon pick up pace over the ‘west coast with heavy to very heavy rains happening over the coastal areas & the Ghats as well. While southern sides of Peninsular India is getting moderate to heavy rains, the coastal areas of Karnataka & South Konkan has been under heavy to very heavy rains in many places. While west coast is under heavy rains, the strong monsoon surge this time has also meant some of the places in the East coast as well came under some light showers indicating the strength of the surge. Weather models indicate similar conditions to continue today as well with heavy to very heavy rains easing from Thursday / Friday to bring some relief to affected areas.
Weather bloggers may remember during the Extreme Monsoon surge that happened in mid August 2018, rains pretty much happened right across Peninsular India from West Coast to East Coast at around 11 to 13 N latitude. Regular weather watchers will accept unlike the Thunderstorms or Veppasalanam Rains as IMD calls it yesterday’s isolated rains in few parts of Chennai & Suburbs did not see any lightning / thunderstorm accompanied by it. And if one could brush their memories, even the 2018 incident could not be called as a classic thunderstorm.
In this context it is indeed a crucial question that needs to be answered whether rains that happen in similar conditions should be called as Thunderstorms or Monsoon Rains. But why rains at a certain latitudes & not at all places? That question will possibly need a separate post by itself on another day.