In what could make those living in the Central & Northern parts of Chennai extremely jealous thunderstorms made a brush over the Southern parts of Chennai coast on its way towards Bay today during the wee hours. While the IMD Observatory at Nungambakkam recorded not even 1 mm out of what was two different thunderstorm activities one during yesterday evening, triggered by sea breeze front intrusion, and after midnight today the observatory at Meenambakkam recorded 74 mm.
Between 9th July & 13th July Chennai AP has accumulated 20 cms while Nungambakkam has managed to record only 16 mm cumulatively for the same period indicating how the southern parts of Chennai & southern suburbs have enjoyed a very good spell of rains over the Weekend. Similarly the IMD AWS stations along the OMR from Anna University to Padur have recorded more than 10 cms during this period.
With early morning thunderstorms still lingering off the coast of Tamil Nadu between Chennai & Pondicherry & similar conditions seen closer to Delta as well we could possibly see some impact on the day time maximum temperatures over these places. South TN under clearer skies could see early increase in temperatures while Interior areas of North TN will relatively be cooler.
On the thunderstorm front consequent to the remnant clouding we might see a slow start to the day with less possibility of sea breeze induced thunderstorms like yesterday. Interior areas though could see clouds clear later in the afternoon which could trigger some thunderstorms late evening which are likely to eventually reach the coast later in the night thanks to the stronger Westerlies influenced by the developing off shore trough. The strengthening Westerlies would also mean increased rainfall activity over West Coast with isolated heavy rains likely over the Ghats of Karnataka & South Konkan.
As usual Chennai’s chance for rains will be out of storms moving towards the coast from interior areas, with storms likely to form around Vellore & Tiruvannamalai districts like the past few days today also there is decent chance for parts of Chennai & Suburbs to catch a spell or two late in the night or wee hours of tomorrow morning.