Chennai: Confused RMC predicts NE monsoon arrival on November 1

Chennai: Even as Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) already predicted the onset of northeast monsoon on October 29, the monsoon again eluded the state leaving weathermen disappointed.

The weathermen at RMC have forecast November 1, as conditions are becoming favourable for the commencement of northeast monsoon rains over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and adjoining areas of South coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema, South interior Karnataka and Kerala around November 1.

“Heavy rain is likely to occur at isolated places over Tamil Nadu with sky condition being likely to be generally cloudy. Moreover, light rain is likely to occur in some areas and maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to be around 32 and 25 degree Celsius respectively,” said a weatherman. Satellite image confirmed how dynamics keep changing every few hours and a broad circulation continues to persist over Bay of Bengal with two distinct circulations, one off Sri Lanka and the other off AP coast, he added.

Meanwhile, weather bloggers have predicted that monsoon might set in on October 3 or 4. K. Srikanth, a city-based weather blogger, said that one of the often-repeated phrases by meteorologists is how difficult it is to give weather forecasts for tropical areas.

“The Bay of Bengal possibly signifies this best in the current context and the models are so inconsistent in their outputs due to ever changing dynamics that we are seeing outputs as crazy as very severe cyclones hitting in less than five days time from now while some models predict absolutely nothing for most of the state during the same period,” he noted.