Northeast Monsoon this year has been behaving like a Run Away train since the onset with pretty much no breaks at all. With no unfavorable factors at times it was running at speeds that was uncomfortable to say the least. But just as one thought the run away train could crash land Nature decided to slow it down by introducing a catch siding in the form of a combination of unfavorable circumstances to reduce the rainfall prospects for Tamil Nadu there by triggering possibly its first break of the season.
To those wondering what is a Catch Siding, the above video from Monkey Hill in the Pune – Mumbai section will show how runaway trains could be diverted to a line with increased gradient to reduce its speed before bringing it back to control. Some parts of Tamil Nadu, particularly those over the North TN districts like Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram, Chengalpet, , Villuppuram, Villuppuram & adjoining areas of Pondicherry will be very happy to see the rains reduce & bring back some sort of normalcy to their regular routines. With an already good year of Rains the hyper active spell of Northeast Monsoon without any breaks meant these areas did not have any time to even recover for a brief period.
Though today & tomorrow Tamil Nadu, particularly South TN and adjoining areas along with interior areas of TN could see rains with some places likely to get heavy rains due to the moisture drag created by the Arabian Sea circulation, the overall trend is going to be that of reducing rains. After tomorrow we could possibly see some bit of dry weather influenced by the expected NW movement from the Bay circulation that is likely to become a Low Pressure Area today. Ensembles are fairly in sync about initial NW movement of this pulse towards Coastal AP & its subsequent NE recurve under the influence of the incoming Westerly Trough. This could mean a temporary state of Westerly winds over southern parts of Peninsular India for a few days bringing associated dry weather along with it. Subsequently it could be a few more days before the Easterlies return back to normalcy which potentially means a reduction in rains and possibly drier weather conditions for a week or two though isolated / scattered rains, particularly over coastal areas & south TN may return early next week.
Chennai meanwhile will possibly see sudden bursts of rains like yesterday for about 5 – 10 minutes, particularly places closer to the coast, before a sunny spell returns. But overall the intensity & frequency of these short burts of rains will fade away from today.