NE monsoon withdraws from Tami Nadu

Chennai: With the Met department formally announcing on Saturday the withdrawal of the northeast monsoon from Tamil Nadu, the city is expected to get warmer in the coming months.

“Due to a high level of moisture and no radiation cooling, the minimum temperature has increased in Chennai by about two degrees Celsius and nights have become slightly warmer,” said Dr Y. E. A. Raj, deputy director general of meteorology, Regional Meteorol­ogic­al Centre (RMC), Chen­nai.

Amateur weathermen said that temperature levels were bound to incre­ase in th­e coming months with the possibility of Chennaiites experiencing hotter days by April itself. “Though the Met office has officially announced the cessation of the northeast monsoon only now, the season actually ended by December first week.

This time, we can expect hotter days from March,” said amateur weatherman and Ham radio operator K. Rajesh, who added that the city would face water problems due to a poor NE monsoon.

Weather blogger R. Pra­d­ee­p Joh­n said Che­nnai received the lowest NE monsoon rainfall in the last 10 years at 43.68 cm against the normal of 85.72 cm. Overall, the state got 33 per cent defi­cit rains in the NE mon­soon with only five districts, Kanyakumari, D­ha­r­mapuri, Tirunelveli, Nilgiris and Krishnagiri receiving normal rains, but also on the negative side. The top three deficit districts were Kanchee­pura­m (-51 per cent), Dind­igul (-50 per cent) and Pudukottai (-50 per cent).