October is an interesting month always for the weather watchers. Its a month which sets the pulse racing as most of us keep looking at weather charts to identify the possible onset of Northeast Monsoon season. It is also that time of the year which sees some of the strongest cyclones in North Indian Ocean Basin.
2019 became no exception with Cyclone Kyarr becoming the strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Arabian Sea and the second strongest cyclone historically after the infamous Odisha Super Cylcone of 1999. But its a pity to see the current state of the same Cyclone Kyarr pulse which has rapidly decayed into a Deep Depression and will end up as a Depression today. In the meanwhile Cyclone Maha continues to intensify and is expected to become a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm today as it starts to slowly turn west away from the Indian Coast.
This year will go down in the record books as one specimen considering various events that happened during October a month that saw two simultaneous cyclones in Arabian Sea for the first time ever. It was also a year that saw Southwest Monsoon not start its withdrawal until 1st week of October. But in the end it ended up completing the withdrawal in record pace setting the stage for Northeast Monsoon. The strong Easterlies over Peninsular India well before Southwest Monsoon withdrawal meant the interior areas enjoyed a very good thunderstorm season.
After the onset of Northeast Monsoon the pace of rains picked up across Tamil Nadu with the last couple of days reminscent of a Dhonisque finish in a T 20 match. Pamban possibly never associated with heavy rains during Northeast Monsoon unlike delta places like Nagai / Karaikal ended up October with more than 70 cms of rains which is nearly 3 times of its average rainfall. To give a perspective it got 3/4th of its annual rainfall in just one month. If one looks at the chart its very heartening to note except for a few places most places are on course to get their annual quota of rains without any major worries.
On the regular weather front except for some places along the Western Ghats rains are likely to stay away from most of Tamil Nadu for the next couple of days. Once Cyclone Maha moves further away things will slowly fall in place for NEM to get back on track.