On 14th January IMD announced the withdrawal of Northeast Monsoon from Tamilnadu, Puducherry & Karaikal, adjoining areas of Coastal Andhra Pradesh & Yanam, Kerala & Mahe, South Interior Karnataka and Rayalaseema bringing to an end to the NEM season that began on 21st October 2023. A season that started slowly, performed erratically punctuated by extreme rainfall episodes during the first week of December, 2nd week of December and to a slightly lesser extent second week of January as well.
Since 13th January dry weather has been prevailing across Tamil Nadu and most parts of Peninsular India under the influence of continental winds from North. Despite the prevalence of dry weather night time temperatures have not dipped consistently so much so the minimum temperature of 18°C recorded at the IMD observatory at Bengaluru is the highest minimum temperature recorded during the month of January since 1998 making 14th Jan.’24 one of the warmest January nights in recent times at Bengaluru.
The last couple of days have seen night time minimum temperatures dip slightly over the interior areas of Tamil Nadu though interior areas of South Karnataka continues to see sub par winter conditions continue. The presence of a cyclonic circulation over the Comorin Sea area is likely to trigger isolated light rains over one or two places in South TN while brining moderate rains over a few places in Sri Lanka. Additionally it is likely to also bring cloudy skies over most parts of Tamil Nadu and adjoining areas of Interior Karnataka leading to warmer than normal nights.
All in all despite the prevalence of dry weather across most of Peninsular India the winter conditions may remain sub par for most of this week and next week with weather models expecting the next active winter spell to possibly happen around Republic Day.